"SPARE" EMBRYOS AND "SYMBOLIC" LIFE 
 
Editorial by Dave Andrusko, NRL News Editor 
National Right to Life News, Feb. 28, 1994    
 
legend:    *italics*   #boldface# 
 
"Even many of those employed as so-called 'bioethicists' appear incapable  
of saying no to any new advance in the manipulation and sale of life. They  
seem intent on guiding the unthinkable on its passage to becoming  
debatable, then justifiable, and finally routine."  
 
                                               *Andrew Kimbrell,* 
                                               #The Human Body Shop#  
 
"Well, I don't mean to be cynical here. The fact is that you are never  
going to persuade an entire public to support a point of view, but you can  
get a good deal of tolerance if you have what looks like a defensible,  
open process." 
 
                                  *Dr. Steven Muller, chairman of the 
                                   NIH Human Embryo Research Panel* 
 
"Please don't kill the child . . Please give me the child"

     *Mother Teresa, delivering a passionately pro-life message to the 
February 3 National Prayer Breakfast*

Jeremy Rifkin once observed that while Aldous Huxley's 1932 classic both
excited and frightened its readers, "still for many in the intellectual
community and the public at large, Brave New World was greeted more as a
metaphor, a compelling parody of the modern condition, than as a very real
possibility." But today, as Rifkin wrote in his foreword to *The Human
Body Shop,* "Huxley's vision is fast becoming commonplace." Alas, the
institutionalization of this degradation is now in the works.

During the last election cycle many of us feared that if Bill Clinton were
able to snooker the American people into electing him President, the last
dike holding back a tidal wave of sickening fetal experimentation
proposals would crumble. But even those of us most apprehensive about what
Clinton would do or allow were unprepared for the breathtaking contempt
for the dignity and integrity of human life on display at the February
meeting of the new 19-member National Institutes of Health Human Embryo
Research Panel. Chaired by Dr. Steven Muller, the panel exemplified in
every detail the worst of the contemporary, anything goes "bioethics"
mindset. Should the NIH panel's grotesque sentiments prevail, any
distinction between the unborn and "tissue" will be annihilated. Some
background is in order to appreciate that the long fight over harvesting
fetal tissue was the opening act in a human tragedy whose goal it is to
make the utterly wrong absolutely right. 

Virtually the day he was inaugurated, Clinton disposed of the ban on
federal funding of abortion-dependent fetal tissue transplants. Less than
12 months later, in early January 1994, the National Institutes of
Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS) dished out $4.5 million to Dr.
Curt Freed (who is not exactly known as an exemplar of competence among
his colleagues, by the way) to study fetal tissue implants as a possible
"remedy" for Parkinson's disease. The grant's antecedent was a fierce
struggle that went back to the 1980s over the historic question: Would the
federal government subsidize the harvesting of body parts taken from
electively aborted babies? By 1988, those at NIH who ached to go forward
felt the time was ripe to bring together a stacked (17-4) panel of
notables who, they knew, would give their sanction to federally
underwriting the stripmining of unborn babies. With approval by the Panel
on Human Fetal Tissue Transplantation a foregone conclusion, as a sop to
those worried sick by scenarios of women being pressured into having
"altruistic" abortions, abortions delayed to harvest the "right" tissue
from hapless babies, collusion between abortion clinics and medical
researchers, etc., the majority added a number of cosmetic "safeguards."
Thanks to Clinton's election, all this paid off for proponents beginning
with the grant to Freed. Yet even before the grant was formally announced
the anti-life set was already reneging on its altogether insincere
"promises."

In December 1993, an article appeared in the prestigious journal Science,
written by Cynthia Cohen and Albert Jonsen (no doubt with full knowledge
of the upcoming NINDS announcement), key players in the National Advisory
Board on Ethics in Reproduction. They addressed a number of issues
relating to human fetal tissue transplants. Lo and behold, we learn,
perhaps it's time for even those minimal safeguards to go. Referring to a
proposed successor to the 1988 panel, Cohen and Jonsen advised, "The new
panel should consider whether changes in the timing and method of abortion
that are not significant and that would retain the integrity of the tissue
without placing the woman at greater risk, would constitute an
unacceptable breach of the wall of separation" between those involved in
the "donation" and those who use the tissue. 

However, if you think the fetal tissue scavengers have cornered the market
on disrespect for unborn human life, think again. Richard Doerflinger's
thoughtful, thorough account on page 14 of the first meeting of the NIH
Human Embryo Research Panel February 2-3 reminds you of Yogi Berra's
immortal observation - - it was like *deja vu* all over again - - only
worse! Interestingly (but predictable, given a militantly pro-abortion
president in office), unlike the case when the . . 1988 panel was
assembled, NIH didn't even make a pretense at including dissenters.  There
was #no one# on the panel likely to have a smidgen of doubt about making
guinea pigs of (among others) so-called "spare embryos." 

The tone was established right out of the box when panel members chafed at
the "restrictions" on their charge. Ostensibly, the "only" babies they
could voice approval to shred, splice, spindle, and scavenge were those
residing outside the mother's womb, i.e., in a petri dish - and
(supposedly) only the first 14 days of the embryo's existence.  But from
the word go they showed they already had gobs of ideas how to circumvent
the limitations. For instance, they pine for the day when they will be
able to "grow" a baby in an artificial womb. Since the baby has never been
"implanted" they reason they can do what they want with the child.

There was seemingly nothing protective of the poor unborn baby the panel
couldn't invert. For instance, the first staff presenter referenced a
famous essay written 28 years ago which documented that unethical human
experimentation was rife in the medical community. That notable 1966 essay
by Henry Beecher was (like so much else those two days) trotted out as a
cover to hide/justify wretched proposals. Thus, the real lesson of
Beecher's warning was not, for instance, the need for fully informed,
voluntary consent, but for "far more dependable and reliable safeguards
than consent" - - the "presence of a truly responsible investigator."
Famous historic declarations motivated by worldwide revulsion - -the
Nuremberg Code and the Helsinki Declaration - - were subtly dismissed as
mere "guidance or rules." Much better to look to "fundamental ethical
principles."

However, when this reassuring rhetoric is deciphered, there are a number
of readily apparent dangers. First, the "principles" are so vague it is
easy to use them as license to degrade the humanity of the "subject."
Second, ethical scrutiny is reduced to the researcher taking his own
pulse, or to "peer review" - - having others equally as eager to
manipulate the chromosomal language of life "critique" the work!

But the prepacking didn't stop with a uniformly pro-experimentation panel,
disdain for mere "rules," and eagerness to circumvent the parameters of
what they were supposed to discuss. For the most part the panel called
witnesses whose primary (in one case exclusive) responsibility it was to
goad them into doing what they were already primed to undertake. The guts
of the testimony by attorney Lori Andrews and "bioethicist" Bonnie
Steinbock can be quickly summarized. Other nations to some extent are
reining in their very permissive fetal experimentation policies, but don't
let this much needed re-evaluation get in the way. In fact, let's go the
other way. Let's take a "fresh" look at protections for the unborn
established principally in the 1970s following a series of hideous
experimentations involving children born alive during late-term abortions.
(As Richard Doerflinger wrote in #NRL News# a few years ago, "Among the
most notorious were experiments in Finland studying metabolism in the
living decapitated heads of victims of hysterotomy abortions.") Worry less
(actually, don't worry at all) about the harm you might do, worry about
the "good" you don't do if you get hung up on honoring the humanity of
"products of conception." In fact, now that we're on the topic the only
value embryos have is "symbolic."

And there is nothing - - NOTHING - - that is out of bounds. Between
Steinbock's prepared remarks and follow-up questions we learn it's okay to
create transgenic (cross-species) kids, okay to specifically create
embryos for ghoulish experiments, okay to clone, okay to reap fetal
ovaries from aborted babies, okay to discard "surplus" embryos, and okay
as part of the cloning exercise to use the "other" as a "source" of tissue
to implant in the adult at some future time to correct some "failing
system," to name just some of the atrocities. 

The prevailing attitude, the collective group-think, was neatly summed up
in Steinbock's memorable response to the question of creating
cross-species, with humans being one of the species: "Some people are
offended by the notion and think that there's a natural way of things, and
I don't accept that world view."

Those not able to stomach the ugliness that the panel found lovely were
largely dismissed as merely afraid of the "new." The one time reality
intruded itself was when a man observed uneasily, "I have the feeling that
we are much more comfortable with many of these issues than is the broad
cross-section of the country."

For my money, no one on the panel had a clue how radically what they are
proposing would transform our cultural landscape. I think of one panelist,
utterly transfixed by what they could already do, let alone what was over
the horizon. He positively swooned over the prospect of growing a human
embryo in a petri dish, who forms an embryonic disk, a primitive neural
system - - "(y)ou could even, I suspect, probably get a beating heart
without having a massive blood supply going."

Possessing a tin ear morally, far from troubling the anti-life set, is a
badge of honor they wear proudly. What one writer called the "abyss of
possibilities" - - a cavalier attitude of "Why not?" to every proposal no 

(Inset)

*#The prevailing attitude, the collective groupthink, was neatly summed up
in Steinbock's memorable response to the question of creating
cross-species, with humans being one of the species: "Some people are
offended by the notion and think that there's a natural way of things, and
I don't accept that world view."#*

matter how nauseating, no matter how it undermines the solidarity of the
human community - - stirs the juices of those whose values bear a striking
resemblance to the eugenics movement. Their ace up the sleeve when
reducing members of the human family to experimental fodder is to reassign
the intended victim to some "intermediary" form of life. Once we have some
category worthy of "respect" but not protection, the door is wide open to
complete disrespect and unlimited exploitation.

Personally, I do not believe it was mere coincidence that the NIH panel
met on the same day Mother Teresa delivered an uncompromising pro-life
message, or that in attendance, no doubt wishing he were any place else on
the face of the earth, was Bill Clinton. As Paul Greenberg, editorial page
editor of the *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette* observed, "The elderly nun
skipped the traditional, feel good opening and got right down to business.
The business of abortion, to be painfully exact."

In her inimitable manner, Mother Teresa returned for what may have been
the thousandth time to a theme she refuses to abandon: "The greatest
destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the
child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother
herself.  And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how
can we tell other people not to kill one another?" The National Prayer
Breakfast audience gave her a stupendous ovation; it seemed to go on and
on. Cal Thomas was right: the Gores stared blankly ahead, the Clintons
reached for their water glasses. (See page eight.) 

There is no reason, of course, for the President to have had any idea what
was going on just a few miles away at the Human Embryo Research Panel.
"All" he did was unleash the furies; we can't expect him to micromanage
the greatest assault on preborn life since Roe v. Wade, can we? But what
we can hold him responsible for is the message his Administration is
sending. Not only are the barriers down, but the huns are already inside
the gates; and no matter how rancid the proposal, the instinctive response
will always be, "Why not?" 

Rifkin has warned that, for many, trepidation at the technologicalization
of the entire human reproductive process has been replaced with mere
curiosity. "The question, How could we? has been replaced with the
questions, How soon? and, At what cost?" But not, we need to remind
ourselves, by the Mother Teresas of this world. She refuses to allow
questions of profound moral importance to be dismissed as though it were
nothing but the twitch of a now-dead ethical legacy.

The struggle ahead will be even more challenging than the confrontation
over reaping the brains of an aborted baby. The trajectory of the Human
Embryo Research Panel was apparent just by its composition. (More on that
next issue.) It will go about its business - - doing its level best to
eradicate the troublesome residue of respect for the sanctity of unborn
human life - - regardless of how loudly we protest. However, if enough of
you write the panel, vehemently objecting to the sickening, morally bereft
practices outlined in this editorial and Richard Doerflinger's story, we
will establish the foundation to fight this war another day and in a forum
more attuned to the voice of the people. The address is: Steven Muller,
Ph.D., Chair, NIH Human Embryo Research Panel, c/o National Institutes of
Health, 900 Rockville Pike, Building #1, Room 218, Bethesda, MD 20892. 

Please do it today!

dha

First appeared in the National Right to Life News.  Copied with
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