The Fly on Stem Cells

Over at Right Thinking, Drumwaster posited the following question in response to one of my posts.

Hey, Ship… how is using embryos that would have been discarded ANYWAY a violation of any kind of values?

I don't know that I've actually posted a rationale behind why I'm very skeptical of things like cloning, so I may as well post my response here.

I, and most rank and file conservative republicans, believe that life starts at conception. Because of this, I oppose embryonic stem cell research. As far as I’m concerned, these “embryos”, which is to say, babies, deserve a proper burial, not to be used for experiments.

To be honest with you, Drum, if these babies are beyond salvation, I don’t have as severe a problem with some testing, though I do question it on moral grounds; I can, however, justify it as being largely similar to cadavers being dissected by medical students or used for research. What I do have a very big problem is what would happen if the research was successful. There are basically three options.

A) Embryonic stem cell research isn’t carried out, and we maintain the status quo on both medical testing and abortion.
B) Embryonic stem cell research is carried out, it’s proven worthless, and we maintain the status quo on both medical testing and abortion.
C) Embryonic stem cell research is carried out, it’s proven successful, and the embryonic stem cell markets are blown wide open, leading to the wholesale, assembly line deaths fo what I and many other Americans consider to be innocent, defenseless human beings.

Given that A and B give the same result, and C gives a result that is wholly and completely unacceptable on moral and ethical grounds, why would I support risking outcome C by starting embryonic stem cell research in the first place, even if the initial testing is done on embryos that will never be made viable? And further, why would I condone my tax dollars supporting it financially?

You can think that an embryo or a fetus isn’t a baby, and that’s your prerogative. You can think that my ethics and morals are antiquated and inconsistent with modern science; you’d be wrong, but you have a right to your opinion. Whichever way you slice it, though, if embryonic stem cell research is successful, people will demand more sources of embryonic stem cells, and it will become a major component of the medical industry.

So, if my options are not funding embryonic stem cell research and maintaining the status quo, funding embryonic stem cell research only to find out that it’s all been a waste of time and money, or funding embryonic stem cell research and paving the way for an outcome that I find morally unacceptable, I choose the first option.

If you don’t believe that the third outcome would result in the wholesale assembly line destruction of embryos/fetuses (or, as I would prefer to term them, human beings), then you’re once again entitled to your opinion, but I’m then entitled to think that you’re rather naive.

That's my opinion in a large nutshell. Comments? Questions? Disagreements? Post 'em up, wankers.