Beyond Embryonic Stem Cell Research

By Ken Concannon
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 8/19/04)

In 1798, John Adams — who had the year before become only the second President of the fledging American experiment — wrote: "Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Adams was one of this country's Founding Fathers, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was, in fact, part of the three man committee charged by the Continental Congress with the responsibility of drafting that Declaration. And along with all the other Founding Fathers, he believed that liberty was ultimately derived from God, the Creator, and that the success of the rebellion and the survival of the new republic would ultimately depend on adherence by the American people to God's moral law.

Paramount in the Declaration and in moral law is the principle that the right to life is a right bestowed upon humankind by God and no other. That principle and Adams' supposition about our nation's survival has twice been tested in the 228-year history of our country. The first test was the issue of slavery, which caused the Civil War and almost destroyed our country. The second test is abortion and its related evils which are destroying the American family and with it the moral fabric of our country and ultimately the liberty that emanates from that fabric.

Science tells us that human life begins at conception. The Church and moral law tell us that we have a sacred obligation to protect human life. History tells us that terrible things happen in societies that ignore that obligation. Two of the terrible things, byproducts of what Pope John Paul II has described as the "culture of death," are being promoted in the secular media, in state legislatures, in the halls of Congress, in American universities by unethical bioethicists and in research laboratories by scientists in white coats.

The two terrible things are cloning and embryonic stem cell research. At present there are two bills in Congress that deal with cloning. One, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, is an outright ban on human cloning that passed the House in February of 2003. A Senate version of that bill (S.245) was introduced by Senator Sam Brownback in January of that same year and awaits committee action within the Senate.

The other bill is the Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2003 (S.303), introduced in the Senate shortly after the Brownback bill by Senator Orrin Hatch. The Hatch bill would ban cloning for reproductive purposes, but would permit it for embryonic stem cell research, which in the process of the research, kills the embryo. It, too, sits in committee limbo.

In addition to Brownback, 28 Senate co-sponsors — the vast majority of whom have strong pro-life voting records — have signed on to the total cloning ban (S.245). Eleven cosponsors, including the Catholic Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry, have signed on to the Hatch bill (S.303). Most of the sponsors of this bill — people like Senators Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and Kerry — have long been committed to the "culture of death."

But Hatch, who introduced the bill, and Zell Miller, one of the co-sponsors, have been consistent supporters of the pro-life agenda until now. Apparently they have been seduced by the unverified claims of scientists and suffering celebrities that embryonic stem cell research will ultimately benefit mankind by curing Parkinson's disease, and other human ailments.

Forgotten in the debate over embryonic stem cell research is the fact that abortion, euthanasia, and even the Holocaust had also been sold as societal solutions which, though distasteful, would benefit mankind. Also forgotten in the rush to clone and kill is the humanity of the embryo. Scientists who advocate embryonic stem cell research no doubt believe that embryos created by cloning will be human and alive. If they didn't believe that, of what value would the cloned embryos be in the quest for cures for human diseases?

Forgotten, too, is the Founding Fathers promise of an inalienable right to life. If human life can be created for the purpose of embryonic research, who will stop the scientists, suffering celebrities and soulless politicians from moving disposable life beyond the embryo stage and creating a race of human laboratory subjects and organ donors?

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