A False False Dilemma

Michael Kinsley revisits one of his old themes in False Dilemma On Stem Cells, arguing that most people who oppose embryonic stem-cell research are illogical at best because they don't fight in-vitro fertilization, where embryos are stored, frozen, forgotten and destroyed:

If you believe that embryos a few days after conception have the same human rights as you or me, killing innocent embryos is obviously intolerable. But do opponents of stem cell research really believe that?

Kinsley concludes no, else they'd be fighting IVF as fiercely as embryonic stem cell-research, since both destroy nascent life. He also gives some respect and credit to consistent pro-lifers who do oppose both procedures. Which is refreshing given the way he was writing about this in 2003 and 2004, as cited by Ramesh Ponnuru in Party of Death (pp 158-159):

In a series of columns, Michael Kinsley has vigorously argued that President Bush is a "hardened cynic, staging a moral anguish he does not feel, pandering to people he cannot possibly agree with." If he truly believed the embryos deserved legal protection, he would "oppose modern fertility treatments" that also involve the destruction of human embryos. Kinsley claims that people who picket fertility clinics are "entitled" to oppose stem-cell research. If you're not so "fanatical," he concludes, "please get out of the way."

Kinsley's on solid ground when he says IVF is accepted in a way that embryonic stem-cell research isn't. It doesn't follow that IVF is good or moral, or that all other causes must halt until we go back and take care of that one. As Ponnuru puts it:

Why can't pro-lifers concentrate on preventing the growth of a new evil... rather than on fighting a well-entrenched old one (the practices of IVF clinics)?

Look, prescient institutions like the Roman Catholic church have long opposed IVF and still do. And one unexpected side effect of technology is the way it's encouraging people to reconsider whether critics they wrote off a long time ago may have had a point. The latest sonograms of fetuses are doing that with abortion, and for those who care to ponder it, if you know what I mean Michael Kinsley, the Snowflake babies are doing that with embryos. The Snowflakes are the kids rescued from IVF facilities, planted in wombs and impudently walking around pro-life photo-ops.

Kinsley makes some other claims that have often been challenged if not outright refuted, including the idea that "No other potential therapy -- including adult stem cells -- is nearly as promising for my ailment [Parkinson's] and others."  But here's the main problem:

I cannot share, or even fathom, their conviction that a microscopic dot -- as oblivious as a rock, more primitive than a worm -- has the same human rights as anyone reading this article.

It is hard to fathom. Many facts of the universe are hard to fathom. Look at that dot, at the end of the sentence. We all started there. Kinsley, me, the engineers that designed your computer, 12 million Mexicans, Eric Lichtblau, Peter Carlson and Michael Yon, your priest or your therapist, your high-school crush, all dots. It is hard to fathom.

Comments

[jimbo]

"prescient institutions like the Roman Catholic church"?! Somewhere, Galileo is laughing through his tears...

[Christopher Fotos]

Oh yes. Galileo. Merely the word defeats 2,000 years of moral philsophy.

I feel so crushed, I'd delete this post, but I'll leave it up as a symbol of my inadequacy.

[jimbo]

I don't know what that has to do with being "prescient" (perhaps it makes sense once the sarcasm is scraped away? Oops, now I'm the one being sarcastic...)

I will give the Roman Catholic church this much -- they are at least more-or-less *consistent* on these issues, and they aren't afraid of Evolution, unlike their Protestant evangelical brethren -- perhaps that could be considered prescient. Though I guess it wasn't so prescient when they used to say the soul didn't enter the body until, what, 9 days post-conception? 12? I seem to recall it was earlier for girls than boys (makes sense, don't you think?)

Thanks for not deleting me!

[jimbo]

I'm just havin' some fun wit'ya, I apologize for the snarkiness. I probably deserved the sarcasm for my initial cheap shot. I'm not a jerk, really. Your piece is well-written, thoughtful, sincere, and persuasive... almost. :)

If I haven't lost you, I do have an honest question, and I ask it out of sincere curiousity and not to put you on the spot or try to catch you up in an inconsistency or whatever. I'd never heard of "Snowflake Babies" before -- this is certainly a commendable cause whatever one's politics. My question is (and really I suppose this is just a variation on a question you've probably heard re: adoption in general, so perhaps you have a ready answer), as long as there are frozen embryos that could potentially be adopted, where is the justification for a pro-life couple to have a child naturally? Certainly adopting a frozen embryo to bring to term might be a hardship, financially and otherwise, relative to having a biological child. But if one does have the means, where does one draw that line? I don't think it's as simple as "you chose to have your own child so one you could have adopted is instead discarded", but to some degree it seems to me that's where the absolutist prolife position leads. I'd like to hear your opinion -- and I promise, no more wiseguy stuff. ;)

[Christopher Fotos]

jimbo, thanks for your additional comments. A certain amount of snarkiness comes with the territory, and we're doing a helluva lot better than this (the link is to Patterico, who's referencing a bizarre episode over the past hours in which a blogger made almost unbelievably harsh comments against Jeff Goldstein at his Protein Wisdom blog--harsh as in vilely threatening his child--leading to the blogger resigning her job, Jeff's blog being taken down in a DOS attack, Jeff being forced to move his blog to another site, and who knows what else....so we're doing fine here.

My "prescient" statement was a bit vague and a lot was packed in it--I haven't looked at the original Catholic teaching on IVF in a while, but the Church opposes procedures like this for many reasons including its belief that it breaks the unique and sacramental unitive bond--the true intimacy--of husband and wife, and their relationship with their children. I don't know if they knew at the time that much IVF depends on producing extra embryos to be held in storage, but long story short those are their parents' kids and the bond sure does look pretty weak. That's just one example--the Church gets a bad rap for some of its moral teaching, but if you read what it's actually said, it's had a good record about predicting forces that would weaken the family structure.

Gailieo is not er, our best moment, and IIRC John Paul II issued some kind of apology for some of the actions relating to him a mere 500 years later, but Galileo in addition to being a genius was kind of a clod and brought some of it on himself. He was given an opportunity to sort of smooth things over, but he just couldn't resist poking a stick in the Church's eye, and they responded.

As for your hypothetical, there are risks and uncertainties with implanting a frozen embryo into a woman, and your generic Catholic teaching would not require as a moral obligation taking those extraordinary risks upon oneself (e.g., the health of the embryo, the unknown variables of progeny outside one's own family, and I suppose a medical -procedure risk). In fact, top of my head I don't know if the Church has said anything specific about the Snowflakes, as it's relatively new. Hopefully it'll say something on a shorter timescale than their final disposition of Gailieo. However, to repeat, the Catholic model of family life, to state the obvious, focuses on a man and woman making their own babies and they have no obligation to participate in a technology that, after all, has been criticized from the start by the Church anyway. It really is a moral brain-teaser, though, ain't it? Now that those embryos exist, what are we supposed to do? I think the Snowflakes story is amazing--this is an amazing world.

If you are still awake after reading this far, though, you are putting your finger on something very important here---how Christianity is radical at its root. Jesus: If your enemy strikes you on one cheek, turn the other. If a thief takes your cloak, give him your shirt. And so on. We really cannot live this way--can we? It brings to mind an old saying attributed to G.K. Chesterston--to paraphrase, It's not true that Christianity has been tried, and found wanting. It's been found hard, and not tried.

[Christopher Fotos]

Here's Michelle Malkin on the bizarre episode I was referring to, jimbo.