Human embryos: What have you done for me lately?

Editor’s note: The following first appeared in the Oct. 11 issue of The Monitor, newspaper of the Diocese of Trenton, N.J. It was written by Paula Glover, editor.

As New Jersey prepares for a vote on funding of embryonic stem-cell research, and the issue heats up throughout the world, we should not let go of the important issue and I really hope you don’t just roll your eyes and say to yourself, “Stem cells ... who cares?” “Embryos ... who cares?”

It is easy to be indifferent to the issue -- after all, we can’t see the embryo. We might even understand it to be some sort of less than human item, certainly not worth bothering about.

After all, right in front of us, we can see people who need our help -- starving families in Africa, homeless in America, drug addicts, innocent people on death row, children who need clothes and shoes and help right now. Shouldn’t we focus on these visible problems, and stop poking our noses into scientific research, where the church has no business?

Here’s the problem: By “harvesting” stem cells from embryos for our own benefit, we are saying the same thing when we abort babies -- “we’re bigger than you and we count and you don’t.” We are saying might makes right and to heck with our responsibility to protect those who are vulnerable and need our loving care. I mean, some people actually see the developing baby as a parasite on the mother, rather than a child who just needs time and care to grow.

Don’t forget that at one time you and I were each a cell in our mothers’ wombs.

Let’s assume that we allow embryonic stem-cell research. What will we do if we determine we can grow the child in some artificial environment until it is about three or six months gestation and “harvest” it for spare parts? Will we allow this as well?

This “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” callous attitude speaks volumes about our society and, if left unchecked, will lead to an increasingly utilitarian attitude about people at all stages of life.

Attitudes such as: You’re old -- so your usefulness to society has ended. We’re not going to spend any more money on you, and once you’re really sick, we’ll either outright kill you, or encourage you to accept voluntary suicide under the disarming labels of mercy killing, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. I don’t know if anyone here remembers many years ago when Dick Lamm, former governor of Colorado, said: “We’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.” I wonder how he feels now that he’s 72.

I’ll bet he’s not ready to lie down and “get out of the way.” I’ll bet he believes his years of experience can be valuable. I’ll bet he wants to be treated with dignity and not like an economic unit for consumption by the society at large.

Too bad for all of those unborn human beings who just didn’t make it out of the test tube. We’re here and you’re not. At least until society says we’re too useless to keep around anymore.

Pay attention to this issue. Respect life is the bottom line. The life you save may be your own, and not in the way the embryonic stem-cell marketers have in mind.