“…a single glimpse into what emerges from a human embryo.”
David Warren, in fine form as ever, reflects on the ramifications of the recent decision by U.S. President Barack Obama to reverse his predecessor’s ban on using taxpayer dollars to fund research on stem cells derived from new cell “lines.”
Fittingly, he doesn’t dwell as much on the policy itself as he does on the thing most impacted by it — the tiny human lives, though barely past the unicellular stage, which will be destroyed by this avenue of research.
What is in a human embryo?
We are constantly told, by those who mock “the sanctity of human life,” that chimpanzees share 98 per cent of our DNA. But the key instructions on brain-growing are in the remaining two per cent, as we discovered from the Human Genome Project. All neurons start from a single cell in an embryo, but the human ones are instructed to keep doubling for more rounds than any monkey, and to create in due course a brain whose cortex alone co-ordinates a billion synaptic connections, and whose overall complexity exceeds that of any object known in the entire Universe. It yields an instrument capable (according to the calculations of Edelman and Tononi) of some 10 to at least the millionth power of possible neural circuits: a number hyperastronomically beyond the total number of particles in the universe.
That is a single glimpse into what emerges from a human embryo. These numbers alone should fill us with horror at what is being done in our labs.
Arguments in favour of embryonic stem cell research which are based on the “observation” that a mass of eight or sixteen cells can hardly be called human are false, misleading, and ultimately irrelevant; granted, a mass of a few cells hardly resembles the typical human form, but those cells — alive and possessed of a very human, very unique genetic blueprint — are human and alive nevertheless. It is no particular consolation to note that they will be unaware, at a conscious/intellectual level, of their death, which is murder through and through.
The distinction is only one of category, of that which we — fully developed adult humans — are willing (or not willing) to consider to be human.
We’ve heard these arguments before. That too should fill us with horror.
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Steynian 334 « Free Canuckistan! (March 12, 2009, 3:35 pm).
[...] DAVID WARREN– “…a single glimpse into what emerges from a human embryo” …. [...]
Hi Ken,
Thank you for this wonderfully informative article, with the excerpt from David Warren’s article on Barack Obama’s policy to reverse the Bush administration’s policy prohibiting the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines.
Few American, Canadian, or European politicians, I think, see embryonic stem cell research as a threat to human life along with, say, abortion. I’m thinking of John McCain in particular, who supports embryonic stem cell research but says he is pro-life. He cannot have it both ways, just to get more votes. I find such contradictions quite unfortunate.
It’s downright sad that we require the science to be presented as in David Warren’s column to convince people of the sanctity (or just uniqueness, to avoid a faith-based term for those who are non-religious) of human life.
Anyway, I read your blog periodically, although the novitiate keeps me somewhat busy. I’ve been working with an Order of Sisters (Holy Names of Jesus and Mary) at helping refugees to the Windsor area to get established. It’s great work, and my languages come in handy. To see what people go through in parts of the world arouses moves me a lot. I really admire your photography and the depth of your posts. I hope you, Grace, and Ella are well. In the next couple of weeks I’ll formally ask the Basilian General Council to admit me to temporary vows. The Mass where I’ll take my vows will be on August 15 at the Assumption University Chapel here in Windsor.
God Bless,
Warren