Cries of Embryonic Pain

In a move guaranteed to surprise no one, the Catholic Church is cranking up the anachronism machine again. Their never-ending efforts to set the population back hundreds of years at a time and ignore the blush of modernity continue unabated. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo led the Holy See back up onto it's creaky, old high horse last week in an interview published by a Catholic weekly, reports the New York Times.

Cardinal Trujillo is pushing for changes in Church law that would allow scientists involved in stem cell research to be excommunicated. Not just regular ol' excommunicated either; immediate, invisible, sudden-death excommunication by God. In 1990, Pope John Paul published the Evangelium Vitae, which, among other horrors, declared that abortion would precipitate instant excommunication for both women and doctors. This is called latae senentiae, and it means that the Church doesn't have to do anything; you basically excommunicate yourself automatically if you have or perform an abortion. The Big Catholic Fathers consider abortion so severe that no judgement from them is necessary. No papers are filed, you don't get a notice in the mail, no phone call, just the total and irrevocable severing of your bond with Jesus.

To the short list of offenses that warrant automatic, light-speed holy exile from the love and grace of God forever, Cardinal Trujillo would like to add pretty much anyone involved with embryonic stem cell research. His quote in the Times reads "Destroying an embryo is equivalent to abortion. Excommunication is valid for the women, the doctors and researchers who destroy embryos."

The article also states that it's "unclear" if the Pope is currently in favor of this newest anti-science tactic. However, he will be attending the final day of the Church's World Meeting of Families on July 9 in Spain. Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, will also be there. And, since his responsibilities include new policy proposals, it's a safe bet he will be sitting down in the Papal presence to do some politicking.

Even if the Pope is already on board, or will be convinced at the meetings this month, there's little chance of the changes taking place anytime soon. The Rev. Brian Johnstone says "Clarification of such a delicate point of this importance is unlikely to be made at such a large gathering."

Obviously, since Church dogma maintains that life begins at the moment of conception, both abortion and embryonic harvesting of stem-cells are out. But to assign a spiritual penalty, and the Church's most drastic one at that, to these procedures is truly religious terrorism.

Abortion is a private choice that a woman makes; if one consideration of that decision is spiritual teaching then I don't see a problem. But when an iron-clad dictum mandates one course of action and totally forbids the other, conflicts become prevalent. Human life is not black and white, and neither are decisions, even religious ones. Abortion is an intensely personal issue that everyone must reconcile for themselves. The Church's opinion should be valid to practicing Catholics, but it shouldn't be allowed to intrude upon secular law.

Stem-cell research is the greatest, most promising thing to arise in the scientific community since antiseptics were discovered. If it is allowed funding and study it could very well save millions of people their lives and minds. This is neither private nor personal: the promise that stem cells hold literally affects millions of people worldwide suffering from Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, burns, muscular dystrophy, loss of hearing and vision, and countless other afflictions. To deny these millions the very real possibility of a cure or the alleviation of their conditions based on an unverifiable spiritual belief is an act of tragic cruelty. The Vatican is telling sons and daughters that the observable suffering of their living parents is unimportant next to the idea of protecting life that may never be.

In his book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris delivers a concise description of stem-cell research:

The embryos in question will have been cultured in vitro (not removed from a woman's body) and permitted to grow for three to five days. At this stage of development, an embryo is called a blastocyst and consists of about 150 cells arranged in a microscopic sphere. Interior to the blastocyst is a small group of about 30 embryonic stem cells. These cells have two properties that make them of such abiding interest to scientists: as stem cells, they can remain in an unspecialized state, reproducing themselves through cell division for long periods of time (a population of such cells living in culture is known as a cell line); stem cells are also pluripotent, which means they have the potential to become any specialized cell in the human body-neurons of the brain and spinal cord, insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, muscle cells of the heart, and so forth.

Mr. Harris goes on to say that the embryos are destroyed at the 150-cell stage, but there is no physical evidence whatsoever to suggest that they feel the pain or loss in any way. He baldly states, however, that the immeasurable pain and misery felt by those who could be helped by stem cell research is tangible every day.

Again, I must point out that the Church has it's own, very specific place in this scheme. Science is unbiased, empirical, and based soley on facts. Religion is biased, philosophical, and concerned with invisible qualities such as faith. Therefore, the Church is relegated to an advisory position only. It's opinions must only be valid to those who choose to accept it's belief system. Science cannot be hindered by the religious notion that life begins at conception when it accepts (and the law declares) that life begins at birth. It's understandable that, since so many people look to their spiritual leaders for guidance on so many topics, that guidance should be available. What's incomprehensible is millions of people with myriad, incompatible beliefs thinking that science should be governed by superstition, conjecture and unprovable concepts.

I know most of us are used to George Bush lying to us. What's more, we're aware of the vast resources his administration has at their disposal to create, substantiate, and disperse these lies. On May 24, 2005, in the East Room of the White House, he fed the American public a heinous falsehood. This lie towers as a monument to his blatant, right-wing disregard for a factual approach to science. Bush stated that "The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo." The overwhelming evidence to the contrary comes from the June/July 2006 issue of Free Inquiry, in an aritcle titled "Lies in Embryo," by Arthur Caplan. According to Mr. Caplan, America is storing somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred thousand frozen embryos, with more being created every month. Bush's proposed alternative to using them for stem cell research is the argument that they can be "adopted". And many are. But with such a staggering number of embryos in clinics around the US, there is no way to imagine that even a small percentage of them will be adopted. Many donors of existing embryos have died; some couples created them hoping to have their own child, and don't wish to donate them when their efforts failed; there are even folks who specifically wish them to be used for research if they cannot conceive.

Many couples opt for in vitro fertilization so that at least one of them can give sperm or an egg and thus contribute to the genetic makeup of the child. They have no desire to adopt an embryo created by others. Even if everyone who couldn't have a baby wanted to use an embryo donated by two strangers, there aren't four hundred thousand couples in the country who could afford the procedure. If a couple tries unsuccessfully to have their own child and finds out one or both of them are infertile, adopting a living baby is much easier and cheaper than in vitro.

All this points to one, very obvious fact: There is an undeniable surfeit of "spare" embryos in clinics all across America. In fact, there are so many "spares", that Mr. Caplan says with authority that "...the only fate that awaits nearly all of the embryos now frozen in the United States and the new surplus embryos being created every day is to be destroyed."

Bush has again twisted the facts to back his own, insupportable ideas. It would be wonderful if every embryo could be adopted by a loving family, if every child was a wanted child. This is not the case, and Bush knows it's not the case. He's pushing his own agenda of "life-affirming alternatives" to stem cell research because he disagrees with it on religious grounds.

Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Holland and Spain are among the countries that have decided to use their extra embryos for research. And here, in the world's only superpower, we're still being told by leaders that our invisible friends in the sky will never condone research to alleviate the boundless suffering of the living.

Wake up and resist.