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The Pope has reiterated his plea that scientific progress be based on “ethical-moral principles.” The condemnations are sweeping.
According to Reuters, the Pope said: Practices like freezing embryos, suppression of embryos in multiple pregnancies, embryonic stem cell research, the prospect of human cloning and artificial insemination outside the body had “shattered the barriers meant to protect human dignity.” [Full Story]
All scientific endeavors are not created equal, however. Few people are eager to see human cloning, and few reputable scientists have any desire to try it. Yet embryonic stem cell research, as most scientists envision it, is done with cast-off embryos — nobody is stealing a life for the sake of science — and promises to improve and extend lives of millions of miserable suffers of the most debilitating human ills. Tell a sufferer of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s that this research represents an indignity.
As for test tube babies, perhaps the children born by the method over the past three decades, and their parents and brothers and sisters, should weigh in whether their creation represents an indignity.
If we’re to lump embryonic stem cell research, artificial insemination and human cloning into the same category of moral indignation, then apparently there are no lines and so we need to add everything else that might affect the creation of human life, from aphrodisiacs to Viagra, Caesareans to painkillers. And while you’re at it, toss in a host of techniques, medicines and procedures that science has developed to improve health, extend life or otherwise make the world slightly less miserable than it was a century ago.
January 31st, 2008 at 7:04 pm
The Pope, at the time when vaccination was discovered, declared it to be the work of Satan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_XII#Domestic_policy
January 31st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
A generation ago, a group of people sought to serve humanity with their medical experimentation on Jews… they were going to be discarded anyway. Weren’t they? But, today when a science fiction show wants to depict the bad guys, they often make them look like Nazis. They have become a symbol of evil itself. I am truly puzzled how those medical professionals could delude themselves this way.
I have Type I diabetes; disease for which human embryonic stem cells have been proposed as a possible route to a cure. I consider any cure based on this research to be grossly unacceptable, even if it means my likely death from complications of Diabetes.
Regarding test tube babies; the tragedy of this (in my view) is not the life that was created, but the fact the most of these babies have been conceived only to be discarded.
Conception is the beginning of human life, at least as the term is normally used. And while the U.S. Congress has defined it as such, our laws are inconsistent with that ruling. Perhaps other discoveries, such as the ability to use non-embryonic cells for similar work, could just make the problem go away. But, I would prefer for the profession to take a moral stance to defend human life. If not, they may find themselves featured in the next generation’s science fiction shows.
Joe Dunfee
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
In response to cadcoke4/Joe Dunfee’s horribly uncompassionate, and thus unchristian viewpoint:
Have you been so brainwashed with right(wrong)wing rhetoric, that you have neglected to see that people are dying? Are we not supposed to provide a piece of bread to man that is starving?
Everything we do is a part of god’s divine plan; thus, nothing we do, or are allowed to progress with, at least according to base instructions for your own ideology, is evil or wrong for it is all a part of a bigger picture that just hasn’t been completed yet.
When you ask god for help, god does not come down from the heavens above and directly involve god’s self in your issues; however, he does provide you as a human with the means to reason a way in which to solve your problem.
As with theft, Killing is a sin; yet, in times of war we are allowed to kill in order to protect loved ones and ourselves. The war on disease is another war we have to fight in order to keep ourselves and our loved ones alive; therefore, if a few non fertilized cells, that have not produced even the beginnings of a conscious living soul are going to be used to help save the lives of millions, and perhaps billions if you can possibly see the bigger picture, God is alright with it, and so to you should be.
Anthony Pace
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
The pope is a former member of the Nazi youth; yet, you talk about WWII as an example?
This isn’t world war two; yet, if left uncontested disease will kill more people than all the wars throughout history have ever killed.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Quote: “As for test tube babies, perhaps the children born by the method over the past three decades, and their parents and brothers and sisters, should weigh in whether their creation represents an indignity.”
Response: This is a very poor emotive argument. It is certainly true that rape represents a horrible act of human indignity but that does not mean the “product” of very bad things are always 100% bad. The Pope did not say that and that is not what is meant.
Vinnie
February 5th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Here come da Judge, alias arpace/Anthony Pace!
Perhaps on Judgment Day you can explain to God your ‘big picture’ and straighten Him out as how things work according to your superior view of the way things ought to be.
In the meantime, while you are solving the problems of the world, you should write the Pope and tell him you disapprove of his past. That will put him in his place.
February 10th, 2008 at 4:47 am
To the oledawg with skewed viewpoints:
“Perhaps on Judgment Day you can explain to God your ‘big picture’ and straighten Him out as how things work according to your superior view of the way things ought to be.”
No need; due, to my viewpoint being, according to the Cristian faith, on par with the lord’s will; for, everything man views is a product of the lord’s creation, every derivative a fruit of the lord’s design.
“In the meantime, while you are solving the problems of the world, you should write the Pope and tell him you disapprove of his past. That will put him in his place.”
I am sure that he already knows that supporting an ideal which lead to the deaths of over 2 million soldiers, and 11 million civilians, including women and children, is a bad thing; yet, since you don’t care I am sure he doesn’t either.
You need to study your theology and history before talking to me.
February 10th, 2008 at 4:56 am
To vinnie:
Without being loved, one cannot learn how to love; thus, since there is a high likelihood that mother would project her hate and anger onto the child, it stands to reason that the odds of this child having a normal viewpoint of the world and anything close to a loving home life are nil.
What about when a girl is raped by her father? is she to be forced to birth an abomination, that in most cases will have some sort of deformity and little chance of survival? Are you that biased towards forced reproduction?
February 10th, 2008 at 5:04 am
To express the meaning of my earlier statement…. I can derive conclusions that suit my intentions in all manner:
Isaiah 58:11… And Jehovah doth lead thee continually, And hath satisfied in drought thy soul, And thy bones He armeth, And thou hast been as a watered garden, And as an outlet of waters, whose waters lie not. YLT
The meaning of this quotation is to express that god will provide for us a means of survival in all situations, as long as we look to solutions as though they were in all cases directly provided by god.
I can keep quoting, I can come up with many different versions of truths. Although, I do not wish to say that there are many available contradictions, there do seem to be. The bible, as many other religious texts, can be construed to reflect a meaning which appeals to the individual they are trying to convert; for, it provides justifications to suit the needs of the individual at anytime.