Human Embryos as Commerce
Today’s issue of the ADF Alliance Alert includes several articles that focus on controversies involving the human embryo. In one article, CWA blasts NIH for providing funding to investigate the ethics of human genetic enhancement. According to CWA, the funding was granted to a supporter of transhumanist ideology:
. . . [t]ranshumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the endpoint of evolution. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become posthuman, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have.
Human Events has an article entitled: Definition of the Embryo: Time to Be Clear, Very Clear. It discusses the difficulty of getting a clear definition of “embryo” in the current public debate and mentions ADF’s suit pending before the Missouri Supreme Court. In that suit, ADF is challenging a ballot measure’s description of human cloning.
Al Mohler has a blog post discussing the morality of in-vitro fertilization. It is good that he is addressing these vital issues. One can only hope that he will continue to do so and that more ministers will join him along with the Catholic church to provide a proper Christian response. The holocaust posed by IVF and cloning makes the abortion genocide pale in comparison. One quote from Mohler is particularly noteworthy:
This may be the most devastating moral reality of the IVF technology. These embryos–fully human in chromosomal development–are treated as human “seedlings.” Sometimes euphemistically called “Embryo Eskimos,” these embryos are denied human dignity and are reduced to a frozen existence, awaiting either implantation, indefinite storage, or willful destruction. In recent years thousands of human embryos have been destroyed in Great Britain and the United States, as they were no longer needed or wanted for implantation. The argument for this destruction is often couched in “humane” language, implying that it is better to be destroyed than indefinitely frozen . . . The excruciating pain of a married couple unable to achieve conception is understandable, but this does not mean that all technologies are therefore allowable or morally acceptable. Christian couples must not embrace the new reproductive technologies without clear biblical and theological reflection.
Human technology holds great potential, but it can also be very frightening when used unethically. The financial impetus to engage in unethical behavior involving human embryos is overwhelming. Billions of dollars are at stake and this makes the situation even more daunting.
Moviegoers, may remember scenes in the “Matrix” that showed human embryo farms providing fuel for the machines. Perhaps, we ought to take a lesson from those graphic scenes: The Matrix - No Longer Just a Movie: Will We Be Machines Harvesting Fetal Pods?
The battle over in-vitro-fertilization and human cloning technologies is too important not to be waged.
Alliance Alert Archive on Cloning