1. The morning after pill might violate human dignity because conception preceded taking the pill. Now the person will be destroyed and killed.
2. Feminism made people into utilities by seeing them as what they do instead of who they are.
3. People tend to make choices about much of their life, like deciding to have a child, but it is not a fair choice when it could affect another human being.
A few of the provocative claims made by Shannon Joseph, a rep from the World Youth Alliance, speaking at Columbia last night. Click through for a full recap.
From the title, I could tell that this talk might have a slight right leaning, but I could not imagine how far right-leaning Shannon Joseph (of World Youth Alliance) was in her views about the use of technology to help people have children or cure diseases. Starting off with stem cell research, she presented only positive results of adult stem cell research and only negative results encountered by researchers studying embryonic stem cells. And with much pathos, she termed the usage of embryos (after acknowledging that they would otherwise be thrown away by the clinics) to treat diseases as "cannibalism" and "destruction."
The discussion turned to assistant reproductive methods that are currently possible, such as harnessing biological materials from a stranger to create a child. She charged that the practice was "undermining family structure." One audience member asked whether it would be unethical in her view to allow anyone who cannot get pregnant through intercourse to have their own babies with this technology. She bypassed the problem by responding that if any biological material come from a stranger, the baby is not the parent's and that even when the parents use their own sperm and egg via in vitro fertilization, they are not solving the problem of infertility. Her arguments were very emotionally charged but she did not seem to convince what few opposition there was in the room.
Ideological skews in the audience made this talk less lively than it could have been. The audience was mostly silent or in agreement with the speaker. And the few who tried to oppose Joseph looked like they were being subtly attacked by the conservative outspoken members of the audience.
If you're pro-life, this would have been a talk to reinforce your beliefs. If you're a liberal, this talk would also have reinforced your beliefs with the anger it incited. There was little room for compromise or persuasion and most of her arguments were predictable. But it was valuable for her to speak ideas that are very different from what most of this campus believes in.
A few of the key quotes:
(in a disapproving tone)
Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) purposely takes away children from biological parents and most of these children are denied information regarding who their biological parents are.
Because of ART, there have now even been post-mortem conceptions and selections about what kind of baby you want. This is leading to a new eugenics movement. The only reason this is happening is because it's in the market place and not a government run agency.
In a few generations, we won't have women in certain places or disabled people because people will try to select what qualities they want their children to have or not have. This is wiping out portions of our society and should not be allowed. We should not tolerate this. (then a reference to the Holocaust also being for selective breeding)
When an audience member asked why it's unethical to not want your child to suffer with something like Down's Syndrome, Ms. Joseph replied that we shouldn't be trying to take out the problem in our world by not letting these people be born because they can still lead a somewhat normal life and we should instead be working on cures for diseases. She then said that blindness and Down's are part of humanity and that if we did not let people who had these disabilities come into the world, then we wouldn't need medicine anymore.
When asked when something becomes "a person," she and another audience member answered that the line is hard to draw, so anything that might become a person under the right conditions is a person and when not sure, we should take extra precaution to protect it.
get your facts straight
the speaker's information was more than right regarding stem cell research- there have been NO successful therapies from embryonic stem cell research. it's almost impossible to hear the truth in a speaker's presentation when you enter with preconceptions and bias.
get your facts straight
the speaker's information was more than right regarding stem cell research- there have been NO successful therapies from embryonic stem cell research. it's almost impossible to hear the truth in a speaker's presentation when you enter with preconceptions and bias.
facts
the speaker's information was more than right regarding stem cell research- there have been NO successful therapies from embryonic stem cell research. it's almost impossible to hear the truth in a speaker's presentation when you enter with preconceptions and bias.
facts seem pretty straight
this article never implied that there has been a successful application of embryonic stem cell research. However, there have been many breakthroughs, which apparently the speaker neglected. This account of the talk seems very plausible considering the speaker's own preconceptions and bias. It sounds like you are trying to create controversy where there isn't any.
Interesting
Dear Kahlua on the Rock,
Thank you for writing this blog post about my presentation - perhaps it will generate some useful discussion.
I wanted to repond to some of your statements in the interest of getting that discussion going.
First, although the presentation was sponsored by "right" leaning clubs - such as the republican student group. WYA cannot be correctly described as being right or left leaning. More importantly the central question - whether we can treat the earliest forms of human life as objects for experimentation - is not a political question (right or left) it is the central human question.
If science is to be ethical in any way, scientists need to know when something is a human life. They can't avoid this question because things are or are not "something;" it's not like you can say "it's whatever somebody feels like it is." I think most people would agree that at some point prior to birth the woman is carrying a human being - hence surguries in utero, hence neonatal intensive care units etc. A stem-cell won't grow into an old lady (unless it's totipotent) but the embryo it came from would have had it not been placed in a hostile environment - that is an important thing to think about.
Secondly, with regard to embryonic stem-cell research and clinical results - I have not come across any positive clinical results. If you have access to such results please do pass it along. However, there are already many promising therapies developed from "adult" stem cells - which is why people continue to fund stem-cell research in general. The important thing is that we have an ethically non-problematic, efficaceous, alternative to embronic stem-cell research - therefore people will still receive the medical treatment they need without needing to destroy embryos.
Finally to the eugenics question - I never claimed that all women would be eliminated because of skewed prenatal sex selection - but there is a reason why India has outlawed prenatal sex determination; it's having real visible social consequences.
With regards to persons with disabilities who are "screened" through these methods, I think the way we treat the most vulnerable of our society says alot about who we are. I think you are exaggerating the altruism behind alieviating suffering through early termination. We cannot say that we are a community/society that is compassionate and inclusive of all people if we are unwilling to accept that in our society some people are blind or have other special needs but they are valuable human beings and we are going to adapt our services so that they can participate fully in society.
Terminating the disabled in utero, is not a cure for anything accept for the presence of people with disability and this is profoundly unethical. It says some people can decide that other people's lives are not worth living and they can take measure to ensure that those people don't live.
I look forward to those articles on the success of embryonic stem-cell based therapies.
Regards,
Shannon
Reader Response
Is it a political - right / left - or human question? That is a facile distinction because it ignores that the way this issue is viewed in America turns predominantly on the lines of political ideology. George Bush vetoed funding for stem cell research while the Democratic congress supported it. Nor is it fair to suggest that those who recognize politics in the issue are reducing or demeaning it. The supporters of embryonic stem cell research - research in general - have positive ethical aims as well. They do not malevolently harbor grudges against embryos, but sympathy for born humans with illness. It is a human question for everyone and one that, like it or not, is being addressed in the political world.
If you are unaware of any positive impacts of embryonic stem cell research, this document - http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:xmrpLE4z1vwJ:opa.faseb.org/pdf/Break... - goes through several of the diseases which are better understood due to stem cell research. These include Parkinsons, paralysis, Lou Gehrig's, Diabetes, MS, and Hemophilia. Beyond these examples, research into stem cells and embryonic development has furthered our scientific understanding of all genetically-based diseases. The lives which have been and will be improved are inestimable.
The decision to end pregnancy in utero hardly carries the self-interested principle you ascribe to it. It is neither society's attempt to weed out disability from its midst or usurp another person's decision about the worthiness of life. From your description, it would seem like we do it for the power, control and some Darwinistic impulse to have only the best in our midst. Instead of self-love, I suspect that the only mindset which could render these acts morally comfortable is immeasurable sympathy, an ability to perceive beyond all of the inclinations we have towards life - as recipients of so many privileges and circumstances - that something very near to us will not be able to see things in a remotely similar way. When we have this decision in our reach, is it any less self-interested to ordain suffering? To justify our individual principles when the object of suffering may not even share them with us.
Clarifications
Dear "Reader Response,"
Thank you for the link on Embryonic stem cell research - I'll definately mention the positive findings in future presentations.
Returnining to the point of left/right politics, I have to point out that the US Democrats and Republicans are not the last word on the positions held by the so called left and right. I am not an American, and in my country, Canada, the Liberals, who are arguably much further to the left than the Democrats passed a law banning the creation or cloning of embryos for research. Germany, another country much further to the left than the US has some of the strictest IVF laws in the world. Among other policies - it is illegal to create more than 2 embryos at a time in IVF clinics - thus avoiding the "spare embryo" problem even at a high financial cost. In both cases the "leftist" government recognized the problematic nature of embryonic stem cell research. These countries don't recognize the "personhood" of embryos, however they do recognize the problem of unbridled experimentation with the earliest form of human life. The fact that the left - far left by U.S. standards - could come to these conclusions makes this question much larger than political labels.
I'm not sure how to address your last point. If you honestly think that not living at all is preferrable to not living the "standard" life and that some people can make this decision for others, I won't try to change your mind; we have an impass of ideas. I will say that I hope you are never in a situation in which other people - your relatives, your doctors - pressure you or decide for you than your life is not worth living even though you want to live.
One main point is that
One main point is that terminating the disabled in utero doesn't cure any diseases or help anyone- it just stops disabled people from coming into the world. And, consequently, it adds to the stigma that disabled people are less valuable as human beings. Who are we to decide that a fetus should not be brought into the world b/c of a disability? What about those who will be born with incurable diseases? Or learning disabilities? Or a physical deformity? Who is going to choose what suffering is bad enough that a fetus shouldn't have a chance at life? If you do your research, you'll see that there are limitless numbers of disabled persons who experience much joy in life and bring much joy into the world- in the midst of their "ordained suffering." Trying to play God and decide who gets to live and who doesn't, in an attempt to predict who is going to suffer too much and who isn't, is a complicated and impossible feat. go watch or read "the memory keeper's daughter"- one example of the blessings and joy that come when you let life happen, even with the potential of suffering.
Some answers
"doesn't cure any diseases or help anyone" - It helps the fetus who is destined to suffer from the disease, at least that is the intent. Whether or not this is the effect depends on your opinion about the definition of "help," but it has to be understood that these decisions are benevolent.
"adds to the stigma that the disabled are less valuable" - This idea seems to contradict your entire argument, since the point is to get away from "evaluating" humans altogether. Nevertheless, these acts do not devalue the disabled if they are motivated by an honest respect for the welfare of another. Your point is well-taken if parents only act in their interests, ignorant of the fetus, and simply want to avoid having to deal with future issues themselves. That would be much like the phenomenon of fathers who abandon families to avoid responsibilities. But I suspect that not so many terminations are approached this way. Parents want to deal with things. That impulse, wanting to help another through challenges, operates in the decision to have a child. It would be unreasonable to suppose that with the discovery of one disease, this impulse ceases arbitrarily and parents become completely self-concerned. If approached correctly, this act honors the child as much as any other act of parenting.
"Who is going to decide how much suffering is too much?" This is admirable stoicism. It amounts to saying, "because we can't easily identify a litmus test, we should default to life on face and concede to all suffering. Life can be good no matter how much suffering." Suppose hypothetically that expecting parents could find out from a genetics test that their potential child is destined for the worst suffering imaginable: slavery, poverty, chronic pain, blindness and deafness, torture, rape. If genetics discovered this fate as a certainty should we still impose it on the child because we don't have a litmus test for "how much suffering is too much." Should we impose it on the child because of our personal belief in a premise that lives of suffering can also be worthwhile, even though the child might not come to believe in that premise, and that we have only arrived at our belief in that premise through the uniquely privileged circumstances allowed to us that will be denied to the child? You charge those who terminate pregnancies with "playing God" as they answer "how much suffering is too much," but by inflecting beliefs and principles on to a fetus, do you not "play God" as well?
A gene for slavery, poverty, chronic pain, rape...
Dear "Some Answers,"
You sound like a proponent of wrongful life lawsuits where people sue their parents for allowing them continued existence. I'm not sure we are imposing "beliefs" on a fetus by allowing him or her to remain alive... I don't think not killing something could ever reasonably be considered playing God.
As to the most interesting point you made - about the gene for the "worst suffering imaginable" - I want to point out to you that prior to 1994 in South Africa, and prior to 1865 in the United States, the gene for slavery, poverty, chronic pain, rape, and torture was the combination of genes that made you have dark skin. The resulting offspring was doomed to poverty, illiteracy, rape by a slave owner, regular violence etc. I suppose back then, African American slaves could have decided to commit demographic suicide by killing all their offspring since there was no end to slavery and poverty in sight. Yet somehow these people decided that a life of suffering wasn't a reason not to live, because where there is life there is hope and the possibility that things can improve. The "gamble" to impose life on the offspring of black slaves in the US paid off because in the end they were freed, struggled for their rights and made the US a better place for it.
All this points again to the problem of applying a medical solution to what is ultimately a social problem. In a society with slavery the solution isn't for the slaves to kill themselves or their "fetuses." They are human beings with intrinsic dignity and the problem is the slavery and disregard of their dignity and by extension their rights. In a society with persons with disabilities the fact that life is more challenging doesn't mean that it isn't worth living. In general it's challenging because facilities do not accomodate persons with disabilities, schools are not well tailored and in general there is stigma in society towards disability and persons with disability. The solution to this is not to eliminate the disabled but to say "okay we have people with disabilties in our society and families who care about them, let's do things to support them."
What the hell?
You cannot compare slavery to a debilitating disease. I can't believe you would stoop so low as to use the example of black suffering in America to bolster a pro-life agenda. In addition, the idea of "demographic suicide" is fallacious. There are numerous factors involved in the lives of slaves, not least of which was their investment in Christianity. Slave religion was one that held out the idea of better times in the future. This could have contributed to their perserverence. What's more, slave masters had a stake in the lives of slaves, and they took every precaution to make sure a slave couldn't kill himself, just as they took pains to keep slaves from running away. Just like anything else, the slaves didn't really have a choice when it came to whether or not they wanted to live. And this gene that you mentioned, if you are bringing up a fact (I'm not sure that you are) was obviously a racist myth. Garbage such as that cannot be compared to real diseases and disabilities that plague people today.
But my question to you is, what is it to you if a person wants to die rather than live with a disability, or if a parent or spouse or whoever orders that they want a relative to die rather than face life with a disability? That's a personal choice. There's no room for government involvement, and there is definitely no room for the religiously devout to dictate morality to those people. The government should do everything in it's power to enhance and empower the lives of the disabled, but should not interfere with such personal and heart-breaking decisions. Get off your high horse.
And regarding stem-cells, aren't they taken from aborted fetuses that would be thrown away anyway? Isn't it better to utilize them for the benefit of society at large rather than let them be thrown away. I'd rather have those cells utilized for the public good rather than simply throw those fetuses away. Throwing them away would be even more tragic and disrespectful.
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