0904 Duplicitous Moral Code
When President Obama reversed federal funding restrictions for embryonic stem-cell research, it made good theater and fulfilled campaign promises but flew in the face of the high ethical standards he had promised for his “new day” administration.
In the universe as we know it, certain things are plainly true. All things exist as living or non-living. Living things do not reproduce by shedding inanimate material because dead tissue does not self-generate life, nor does it grow.
Because dead tissue does not create its own life, ethical responsibilities toward the dead are much different than those toward the living. American society and value systems may compel people to mourn or even venerate the dead. There is, however, no moral or civil expectation that inanimate tissue be granted the rights, privileges or protections of the living. The fact of civilization itself exists on the basis of the exercise and management of rights, privileges and protections among the living.
It is also true that, aside from complications or abnormal interventions, all living things reproduce their own living, not dead, kinds. Women do not conceive and give birth to cabbages, cocker spaniels or chimpanzees. After the point of conception, development is not haphazard or dependent on external drivers, but is internal, disciplined and predictable; so much so that it is now possible to identify future medical complications from the fertilized egg.
Finally, mankind is of a different sort than the animal kingdom. Even evolutionists admit that man’s abilities of language, socialization and conscience are mysteriously unique. Biblically speaking, the mystery is explained in that man is a special creation, endowed with the very image of God.
A telling statistic demonstrates these self-evident truths. Nine out of every 10 women who have their fertilized eggs tested in uetero for Down syndrome with positive results abort it. They understand that unless the “egg” is aborted, a human is growing. They understand the child’s potential future and the extraordinary expectations attached to caring for this special human being. Regardless of what it will look like (form) or how much it will “contribute” to society (function), it will be a human being. It will demand sacrificial care and a place in life worthy of sacred respect because of its innate incomprehensible value.
Embryonic stem-cell researchers are necessarily devoted to all of these same truths. They understand that their version of science will not work by using dead tissue. They understand and depend on the fact that their living human victims will not develop into cabbages, cocker spaniels or a chimpanzees.
To satisfy their drive toward an elusive breakthrough and for the sake of prestige and grant money, they destroy living beings. They choose to ignore both the science they claim to serve and the deepest moral implications of their actions. Worst of all they willfully violate one of medicine’s most ancient creeds; “primun non nocere” (”first, do no harm”).
At the signing of the president’s stem cell executive order, the most powerful man in the world and a group of misguided researchers demonstrated that the only alternative to obvious truth is a duplicitous moral code. While promising not to distort or conceal, they politicized and federalized unborn children, ignoring both the abject failures of embryonic stem-cell researches and the magnificent treatment advances from adult stem cells. As he mouthed sensitivity and morality, he forced millions of taxpayers to be in violation their consciences.
As the Tower of Babel taught ancient man and as the Nazi Holocaust should have taught modern man, righteousness does not always require achievement for the common good but sometimes expects failure for the sake of the vulnerable.