Selective absolutism

Here's what I don't understand about the Christian Right's opposition to stem-cell research:

If life begins at conception, and an eight-cell embryo in a test tube has the full status of a human life, why haven't we heard anything about a ban on discarding and destroying the "excess" frozen embryos that couples have stored in fertility clinics and will never use? For that matter, why isn't there a ban on creating those embryos in the first place? If we must accept God's will when we get pregnant, shouldn't we also accept it as God's will when we can't get pregnant? Or do Christian couples who have trouble conceiving want to keep the option of in vitro fertilization open for themselves as well, as one of God's mercies? The Catholic Church does in fact rule against all forms of assisted reproduction -- a position which, whether one agrees with it or not, is undeniably deeply thought out and consistent. But if many evangelicals share this view, I am not aware of it.

There's a serious inconsistency here: it's OK to throw those embryos out, but it's not OK to use them to help save other lives? If a couple wanted to donate their "excess" embryos for stem cell research and therapy, would that not be a finer fate than getting dumped in the ocean with a bunch of medical waste (more like donating a deceased family member's organs so some part of that person can live on)? New embryos would never need to be created expressly for the purpose of research. Plenty of embryos already exist, and face a far more ignominious end than giving a living person the gift of healing.

And what about therapeutic cloning -- creating an 8-cell embryo from your own cells in order to grow replacement tissues or organs that will not be rejected? Don't our own cells belong to us (insofar as anything does, that is)? I am for the ban on reproductive cloning. In my ideal world, it would extend to research, agriculture, and pet-resurrection. (Fat chance.) No cloned embryo of any animal species should be grown to maturity. It's cruel: cloned organisms like Dolly the sheep, as well as transgenic animals, suffer a high rate of painful genetic diseases and early death. (Remember the pathos of the clones in the movie "Blade Runner," who lived only four years -- or wait, was it four days?) But to grow new tissues from our own cells -- what is the ethical objection to that?

One objection, the Catholic one, is that only God can give or take away life, and people have no business playing God. (So was it God or the devil who gave us the ability to figure this stuff out?) The other objection, obviously, is the belief that an 8-cell embryo, even one artificially created by nuclear transfer, is a life. I think it's more like a seed. That's why its development can be suspended by careful freezing. A strong argument can be made that life begins not with conception, but with implantation. Without nourishing soil, or a welcoming womb, a seed is only a potential life. For humans, that means that life begins with and exists only in relationship. What that says about abortion, and about implantation-preventive agents like "Plan B," is a huge subject for another time -- the AmbivAbortion Rant, coming soon to this station.

- amba