Obama perfect score

Gateway pundit says it best:

It's Friday... Time for President Obama to sign some more abortion legislation.
-----------------------

Yes, American taxpayers will now pay for scientists to kill embryos "destined to be destroyed" to make miracles.

Ah yes, but why are they "destined to be destroyed"?

That alone says a lot about the moral confusion.

Most people are unaware of the subtle the moral problems of In Vitro fertilization. Most stories about IVF are "feel good" stories of poor infertile moms who now have babies to hold.

Few people seeing a happy mom with a greatly beloved child want to bring up the disturbing problem of the leftover embryos languishing in the freezer...

But the main problem with news stories about stem cell research is a lack of clarity.

There is an open bias in favor of the embryo killing version of stem cells, so when adult stem cells are used, often that fact isn't mentioned until paragraph 6.

No wonder that the average American is quite confused on what is going on.

I bet if you asked the average American about embryonic stem cell research, they would not realize that nearly all of the stem cells that already cure people come from adult stem cells.

I bet few Americans are aware that new methods allow stem cells that act just like embryonic stem cells to be made from skin and other tissue. And these cells are better, because they don't have the problem of mismatched DNA.

And I bet if you ask the American public, they will justify the use of embryonic stem cells by saying that the embryos are sitting in the freezer waiting to be discarded, so why not use them...even though these frozen embryos are useless for research.

I bet if you ask the average American if they should buy eggs from poor women in the third world who might be harmed from their donations, they would say no.

Well, so far President Obama hasn't lifted the ban on using tax payer money to buy human eggs for research.

Yet it is being done with private money.

How many Americans are aware that there is already an "egg buying" industry, mainly for infertile women? Most American women prefer eggs from Eastern Europeans for their babies, but of course non caucasian eggs will work fine for research.

How common is the practice? Unknown. But recently South African bishops protested the exploitation of their poor women for such schemes, and feminists are aghast at the black market trade that threatens the health of poor women.


Another legal prohibition that still is intact is the law saying you can't use tax payer money to do research on embryos discarded because they tested positive for disease.

But how long will this prohibition last?

Already there are reports lamenting that we won't use taxpayer money for these embryos, claiming we need to "use" (i.e. kill) them so that we can study the diseases in the laboratory...never mind that the research could also be done on adult derived stem cells, or on primate (monkey) derived embryonic stem cells...

Finally, much of the reporting hints that any ethical limits on embryo killing stem cell research is anti science, and hints that this primitive religious superstition opposes saving lives.

How far can scientists push ethical limits?

Well, some things are even too much for China.

China, who is busy funding embryonic stem cell/cloning research and allowing unlicensed clinics to use the untested treatments on sick people, has nevertheless stopped scientists from using Rabbit/human clones-- unlike the more enlightened UK (England), which does allow "chimera" embryo research.

So you see, there are a lot more ethical barriers to be lifted in the name of "science" in the near future.

The Perfect Storm of the culture of death...first draft...

President Obama has swiftly reversed the policies of the Bush administration to protect early human life, and there is no reason to think he will stop there.

First, he has reversed the "Mexico City Protocol", which means your tax dollars will not only fund abortions overseas but will allow powerful NGO's to bully Catholic and Islamic governments to legalize abortion and abortifactant contraception.

Second, he has stopped the HHS regulations that require clinics and other health care facilities to document that they are protecting the job rights of those working there who refuse to cooperate with abortion.

This may or may not have any effect, since laws doing this date back thirty years, but with the pro abortion folks promoting the "Freedom of Choice" act, one suspects that these older laws and regulations will be eliminated under the law in the near future.

But the final issue is stem cells.

I've seen several newspaper articles asking why President Obama hasn't yet won't reversed the "anti science" regulations of the Bush administration that prevent your tax dollars from being used for "stem cell research".

Let's just stop here for a few definitions.

Nobody really opposes stem cell research.

The objection is to the killing of embryos to obtain "embryonic stem cells".

For Catholics and other religions, this is murder, but many secular ethical traditions also have objections to the killing of life, even a small early human life, to save life.

But ordinary stem cells? No problem. Docs have been using stem cells for years to treat diseases, and nearly every day another "breakthough" is reported.

In contrast, there are no approved treatments using embryonic stem cells.

Stem cells don't have to come from embryos; they can be found in umbillical cords and cord blood from newborns. Slightly more mature stem cells come from the bone marrow, fat, hair follicles, and skin.

There are several advantages for using adult stem cells.

The first advantage is that they can come from the same patient, so you don't have to worry about DNA matching.

The much heralded "embryonic stem cell experiment" last week, where a newly developed stem cell line was being used experimentally to see if it would heal spinal cords, will require the patients to take immunosuppressive medicines, since the stem cells don't "match" the patient.

The second advantage of adult stem cells is that they can be obtained in large amounts, whereas each embryo only results in a small number of stem cells, which then have to be tissue cultured to grow more.

Why is this important? Well, it has to do with cells becoming "old". Older cells (that is, cells that have divided so many times) tend to mutate or even become cancerous.

But if you start with a lot of stem cells, the individual cells don't have to divide so much to get enough to use.

I should note that at least one company that is experimenting on embryonic stem cells says they have overcome this problem, but only time will tell if this is correct.

But why insist on using the embryonic cells at all?

Well, scientists have long argued that "only" embryonic stem cells arepliable enough to be able to form just about anything your little heart desires.

But that argument is no longer true.

Two physicians who pioneered embryonic stem cell research, one American and one Japanese, developed moral qualms about what they were doing.

So they discovered how to "re-program" the more mature adult stem cells into stem cells that essentially acted the same as embryonic ones.

This means that now scientists can easily get some of the patient's own stem cells, reprogram them to act like embryonic stem cells, and then put them to use.

So, from a physician's standpoint, embryonic stem cell research is not needed.

Of course, some scientists argue "well, yes, but we should do it anyway just to learn how these things work"; but destroying human life just out of curiosity is a lot more evil than doing it with the excuse you want to save a life.

In summary, from a Catholic standpoint, embryonic stem cell research, which requires embryo destruction to obtain cells, destroys innocent human lives.

Even the argument that such murder could potentially save another life would not justify the action.

However, recent discoveries make the use of such embryonic cells unnecessary, and indeed, their use is probably more dangerous than using ordinary stem cells.

-----------------------------------

But there is one more ethical problem in the embryonic stem cell research business: the need to make more embryos.

The press frequently talks about "one hundred thousand left over embryos that would die anyway" and most Americans figure that since the embryos would die anyway, why not use them? But most Americans also draw the line at making a new life only to experiment on it or kill it.

That is why even the California stem cell initiative forbids buying embryos.

But recently, one of the California state funded companies doing embryonic stem cell research has started petitioning the state to be allowed to "buy" embryos.

Why? Because the dirty little secret is that all those "left over" embryos in freezers are too old to use, and there aren't that many fresh "left over" embryos.

As the percentage of in vitro fertilization pregnancies that resulted in live births improved, physicians started fertilizing fewer embryos.

As a result, fewer embryos are being fertilized and stored, and as a result, fewer "fresh" embryos are available for stem cell research.

But even those embryos often are not being donated: although polls show most couples would be willing to donate left over embryos, the reality is that few couples actually do so...despite the scientific pro choice rhetoric in most discussions, I suspect many couples see the embryos as a potential child, and have qualms about donating "Junior"...

So where does one go to get fresh embryos?

One buys them...

There is already a big business buying eggs for infertile couples. To get an egg from an American girl, it will cost you ten to twenty thousand dollars; but it only costs one to two thousand if you buy them in Eastern Europe (the "eggs of choice" for upper middle class white infertile couples).

If "embryonic" stem cell research goes full force, as it's supporters want it to, neither of these sources will provide enough eggs, and the cost will be too high.

So look for "egg harvesting" centers in poor countries overseas. Donating eggs is "low risk" in the US, but frought with danger if done by a poor, malnourished woman at a clinic that may not meet US standards in cleanliness or in caring for complications after egg retrieval.

Already, Catholic Bishops in South Africa have condemned clinics that lure local poor women to risk their health to donate such eggs.

------------------------

So if adult stem cells are easier to find, cheaper and easier to use, and have less health dangers, why has the press and the progressive community gotten it's knickers in a knot trying to pretend that only embryonic stem cells will cure people?

It has to do with a "culture of death" mindset.

Destroying an embryo to save a life of another person has deep symbolic and psychological implications that hint of omnipotence: Look, I kill and I heal. I have power of life and death.

Taking a piece of fat, making it into a stem cell that heals is psychologically the level of a fat joke on late night TV. It loses the psychological implications of power and turns into an ordinary medical cure.

Another psychological need for destroying embryos to get stem cells is that it helps assuage the terrible guilt over abortion.

Now, when the nightmares that one has killed one's old baby come, to all those nice neat pro choice arguments can go the ones: Well, it was only an embryo, something we kill every day to save people, so what's the big deal.

After all, as the saying goes: Isn't it better to have one man die to save a country?

Isn't it better to allow one embryo to die to save a life?

Caiphas argument is the argument of the culture of death.

And alas, that argument is not limited to killing embryos in our modern "post Christian" world.

Embryonic stem cell hype and spin (REVISED)

Most of the articles you are probably reading about embryonic stem cells will be cheerful about how these companies are using embryonic stem cells to make people with spinal cord injuries to walk.

There will also be the usual "Bad Bush stopped this because he hated science" (or the variation "because those big bad right wing fundamentalists objected).

But the hype isn't quite true.

Stem cells have been used to cure people for years: adult stem cells, that is.

As for "embryonic stem cells", there are ways that these could be obtained that makes them morally acceptable for Catholics.

One can get embryonic stem cells from ectopic pregnancies (Miscarriage embryos are often too "old" to use). Or they could be derived from amniotic fluid, from Umbillical cords, or from biopsy of the placenta that is commonly done to diagnose defects in the first trimester.

And, of course, more recently, scientists have figured out how to make adult stem cells "revert" to embryonic like stem cells, and indeed various experiments have already been done with these stem cells, which are cheap and more abundent, and an identical "match" to the person needing treatment.

But apparantly the Geron stem cells come from "left over" "embryos".

The argument is that these "left over embryos" will be discarded (read die a natural death) anyway, so why not use them.

But the dirty little secret is that few couples actually donate such embryos, and old embryos aren't desirable for research. That's why the company behind todays' headline, Geron, is busy trying to get California to allow to pay for the fresh eggs to make new embryos.

A "fresh" egg in the US costs $5000 plus dollars, a lot of us in the third world worry that again poor people in Indian and the Philippines will be enticed into selling body parts (in this case being given medicines to "superovulate" numerous eggs). The "complication" rate in the US is low, but under third world conditions, even those "minor" complications (e.g. infections) could be fatal.

But the main ethical issue here is that Catholics and others see such embryos as humans, and that destroying them is the same as killing a human being.

Others see the life as human life, but nevertheless are disturbed by the callusness of experimenting on human life: even if they see the embryos (actually pre embryos) as having less dignity than fully formed humans, they still are disturbed about experiments that view potential human life as merely something for scientists to experiment on.

In this case, the cells have been transformed and grown in the laboratory, making the cells "derived" from embryos (which die in the process of removing the stem cells).

It's that last part-- the killing of embryos to get stem cells from them, that is ethically abhorant to Catholics and others, but the cells themselves now are distant from the illicit act, having been growing in laboratories for many months.

So, could a Catholic morally use such a treatment if it cured his loved one?

Ah, there's the problem. But it is not exactly a "new" moral dilemma.

At least one childhood vaccines was originally developed from theraputic abortions of children with that virus, but many years have passed since their development, so the Vatican has allowed Catholics to use the vaccines until another source is available.

But in this case, there are other sources of cells to use that probably would work just as well, so ethically it is just plain wrong.

But the interesting part of the "experiment" is that although the hype says they are trying to regrow the injured spinal cord, they are not using immature nerve stem cells, but stem cells that are programmed to grow into the lining cells that coat the nerve cells.

According to Web MD, they took embryonic stem cells, processed them and in the lab made the "precursor cells" that are supposed to grow into "oligodendrocytes -- the cells that make up the myelin sheaths that coat nerves in the spinal cord."

This brings up all sorts of questions:

Will these lining cells turn into oligodendrites, or into nerve cells? Will they merely protect the nerves so that the nerves will regrow, or will they form a "scaffold" so that the person's own nerve cells will regrow? And will the nerves actually regrow?

There are other experiments using various methods to get the person's own nerve cells to grow using "scaffolds" that allow them to pass by the injured area: using liquid scaffolds, or biosynthetic scaffolds, or even "nanofibers".

So do precursor stem cells of "oligodendrites" have an advantage over other experiemental treatments?

Will the precursor oligodendrites help the nerves to grow correctly? Or will the nerve cells grow into a tangle of nerve cells (something that sometimes happens when you cut a skin nerve). Will these cells actually allow the person's own nerve cells to regenerate or grow up the spinal cord (or down from the brain into the Spinal cord, since many spinal cord cells are located in the brain and "synapse" in the cord).

And if they do grow, will they connect correctly? Just putting in nerve cells is like just putting in electrical wires: They don't do much good unless they go where you want them to, and they have to connect to the right places so that they work properly.

Then you have more questions: Will the "transplanted" cells be tolerated by the recipient? Or will the patient have to take rejection drugs to stop the body from destroying them via the rejection process, a problem that one sees with most organ donations.

Finally, there is the question of cancer, overgrowth, and benign tumors.

Previous studies transplanting embryonic cells into human brains for Parkinsons' disease did improve a few people, but most didn't work very long: And in a few cases, the cells "overgrew" and resulted in tumors, and in other experiments, the cells overgrew and the patients developed spasms that was worse than their original Parkinsonian slow movements.

If the cells should "overgrow", you could end up with tumors or even cancer.

Or the cells could overgrowtangled and result in the person in severe pain from neuromas.

Or the cells could grow wrong and result in the person having uncontrolled movements.

Finally, although the company claims that they have lots of success, I'm waiting for the animal studies to show that they took embryonic animal stem cells and placed them into animals with spinal cord injuries, and they made the animals walk again. Yes, there are rat studies. But what about primate studies first?

The irony about "primate studies" is that if you experiment on monkeys, you'll get your home firebombed, whereas if you merely kill an embryo that could become a baby, and use it's cells to experiment on handicapped humans, you are a hero.

Despite the hype, these first studies are supposed to be only to see if the treatment is "safe" for humans, so they will not be given a large dose of cells. If the cells don't harm the recipient, they will then be given a larger dose of the cells to see if the cells regrow the spinal cord.

Even if these experiments work, it will be years until the "treatment" will be ready to use in people who are not guinea pigs for the company.

But of course, you wouldn't know that if you just read the hype.

In the meanwhile, experiments with adult stem cells, including matching "patient derived" stem cells and other techniques will receive less publicity.
------------------

(an earlier version of this post was corrected: The stem cells come from ivf not abortions)

Manipulating humans: Brave new world and Cordwainer Smith

BBC Spins story on human animal hybrids: Headlines say " Human-animal embryo tests 'vital' and in the sidebar we see a quote: "There are no substantive ethical or moral reasons not to proceed with research on human embryos containing Animal material"...Martin Bobrow Academy of medical sciences.

But if you go down to paragraph nine and ten, you read a quote that actually contradicts there two claims:

"There are no substantive ethical or moral reasons not to proceed with research on human embryos containing animal material under the same framework of regulatory control," he said.

There were currently no scientific reasons to create true hybrid embryos, Mr Bobrow added.

And for some reason, the very real ethical objections are simply not mentioned.

Why not? Putting one human gene into an animal embryo is probably okay, but destroying an embryo who could become a full human being is ethically objectionable to many people. And adding animal genes into a human is human experimentation.

Placing one or two human genes into another organism isn't a problem, but itsn't it ironic that although there are many protests about "franken foods" and transgenetic farm crops, there are fewer objections into experimenting on human embryos, even to the extent of making human animal hybrids. Indeed, one wonders why these scientists aren't doing their work on lower animals first:why not make cat dog hybrids, or Rhesus/gorilla hybrids to do research instead? PETA would protest. But denying a human embryo the right to live, that's okay?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MirrorOfJusticeBlog links to Leon Kass' thoughts on the dangers of dehumanization in such manipulation.

No friend of humanity today can be the enemy of science and medicine.

Yet contemplating present and projected advances in genetic and reproductive
technologies, in neuroscience and psychopharmacology, and in the development of artificial
organs and computer-chip implants for human brains, we now clearly recognize new uses for
biotechnical power that soar beyond the traditional medical goals of healing disease and
relieving suffering. Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for
eugenic and psychic “enhancement,” for wholesale re-design. In leading laboratories new
creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street
their evangelists are zealously prophesying a post-human future. For anyone who cares about
preserving our humanity, the time has come to pay attention....

Some transforming powers are already here. The Pill. In vitro fertilization. Bottled
embryos. Surrogate wombs. Cloning. Genetic screening. Genetic manipulation. Organ
harvesting. Mechanical spare parts. Chimeras. Brain implants. Ritalin for the young, Viagra for
the old, Prozac for everyone. And, to leave this vale of tears, a little extra morphine accompanied
by Muzak. ...

Kass goes on to use Huxley's Brave New World to show how many of his prophecies, including the prophacies about dehumanizing effects of technology, have come true, and analyzes the materialistic mindset/denial of God and denial of human dignity that underlies modern bioethics.

Huxley's picture of hedonism and despair resemble the drug culture of the sixties, but we have gone beyond that today. I always thought that Cordwainer Smith's SciFi stories were more prophetic on these issues than HGWells or Huxley.

From Wikipedia

• Planet Norstrilia, a semi-arid planet where an immortality drug is harvested from gigantic virus-infected sheep, each weighing more than 100 tons

How does a society use immortality?

• The punishment world of Shayol (cf. Sheol), where criminals are punished by the regrowth and harvesting of their organs for transplanting

So we see criminals as semi human, so inhuman that we use them as organ growers and donors?

• Planoforming spacecraft, which are crewed by humans telepathically linked with cats and which defend themselves against the attacks of unknown malevolent entities in space with the flash of small atomic weapons (these entities are perceived by the humans as dragons, and by the cats as gigantic rats)

Can we combine humans/animal/computers to do our work? In the story, the affection between species counteracts the dehumanizing effect of the work; a strong argument about how love of animals stops the descent into dehumanization.

• The Underpeople, animals modified genetically into human form and intelligence to fulfill servile roles, and treated as property. Several stories feature clandestine efforts to liberate the underpeople and grant them equal rights. They are seen everywhere throughout regions controlled by the Instrumentality.

The stories are about D'Joan, who teaches love and peaceful demonstrations, not battle, are the way to assert the (human) dignity of underpeople. The story continues with C'Mell, several hundred years later. It is belief in God that allows the underpeople to remember they have dignity and worth, although that idea is portrayed so subtly that you might miss it.

But taken together, the storie ask: Are animals genetically altered to be intelligent/semi human that do the dirty work of society worthy of rights?

• Habermans and their supervisors, Scanners, whose sensory nerves have been cut to survive the pain of space

Will we manipulate human/machines into inhumanity for profit? The hero of Scanners leads a revolt after he falls in love and starts turning off his machine...

Making a utopia without a reverence for life ends up dehumanizing all involved is the context of Smith's thoughtful stories. And in reading them, it makes us wonder if scientist's hubris to manipulate animal/human hybrids may someday be recognized as the equivalent of slavery and human experimentation.

Something to think about.