Life Issues Forum
"Always Let Your Conscience
Be Your Guide" (Jiminy Cricket)
by Susan
E. Wills
December 7, 2001
Smack in the midst of the
whole pre-Christmas whirlwind of activity, a weekday Mass homily grabbed my
attention and won't let go. The celebrant offered this observation by Tolstoy,
as a good place to start one's Advent reflections: The coming of Jesus
Christ into the world leaves us with only two choices: we can either change
our life or change our conscience.
This is a profound observation.
It challenges us to take a hard look at our shortcomings and really commit to
following Christ, or not, recognizing the full implications of what "or not"
means for our life and salvation. Then it occurred to me that conscience may
be the most powerful force on earth. Conscience impels us to do what's right
and prevents countless wrongs. It can be ignored and muffled, but never really
dies–not in an individual or in the human race. For example, people have
committed murder for thousands of years, but that has not stilled the voice of
conscience which tells us it's wrong to kill other humans.
Almost
thirty years of legalized abortion have not brought Americans any closer to
accepting abortion as something that's good, or even morally neutral.
Conscience saves lives. Clouding or anesthetizing conscience is fundamental to
the success of the abortion industry. It does it with catchphrases like
"reproductive freedom" and with counseling that claims "it's only tissue." The
industry even opposes "informed consent" laws, lest a woman's conscience be
awakened to the truth. She might change her mind, change her life, and
that would be bad for business.
The smothering of conscience permits
nice, civilized, caring people to support and even carry out horrific acts
against fellow human beings. Case in point: On November 25, Advanced Cell
Technology (ACT) announced that it had created three human embryos by cloning
as the first step toward growing humans to the stage at which their stem cells
can be extracted for experimental use.
Many, including President Bush,
were swift to condemn ACT's cloning attempts. Polls show the public
overwhelmingly opposes human cloning. Supporters of embryonic stem cell
research have gone to great lengths to distinguish cloning to make full-term
babies–which they've dubbed "reproductive cloning"–from cloning humans to kill
them for their stem cells which they have inaccurately labeled "therapeutic
cloning." The distinction is inane; by definition, all cloning is reproductive
because new living beings are created, and the "therapeutic" tag is strictly
wishful thinking.
The strong public backlash did not prompt ACT
officials to abandon human cloning attempts, but it did usher in a major new
effort to cloud and smother the conscience of the public. At a December 4
Senate subcommittee hearing, Michael West, president and CEO of ACT, professor
Ron Green of Dartmouth, his chief ethics adviser, and others unveiled a
panoply of soothing lies and obfuscations.
First, they abandoned last
week's terminology–therapeutic cloning–as "misleading." We are no longer
supposed to use cloning when speaking of human embryos cloned (oops) to
be killed for stem cells. Now we are to say "somatic cell nuclear transplant."
Apart from sounding less ominous, this change is not helpful. The phrase
simply describes a step in the process of creating human clones, and applies
equally whether they're being created for cuddling or spare
parts.
Several panelists described the various research steps involved
in what we used to call therapeutic cloning in the old days last week and how
it differs from reproductive cloning that nobody likes. A large chart served
as a visual aid. One begins with a human egg whose nucleus has been removed.
Then the nucleus of a body cell, containing a full complement of DNA is
inserted into the enucleated egg. The egg and its new nucleus fuse and begin
to divide as if fertilization had occurred. This entity, in the middle of the
chart, is labeled "somatic cell nuclear transplant" ("SCNT"). From the SCNT
two arrows point northeasterly and southeasterly. The former points to a
woman, oddly labeled "implantation." There's an arrow pointing from her belly
to a cute little x-ed out baby, labeled "clone." The arrow heading southeast
from our SCNT leads us to a petri dish full of stem cells, and from thence to
a "cured patient" who is not x-ed out. See the difference? Cloning babies is
bad; curing patients is good.
But something is missing from this
picture and from the panelists' testimony. They neglected to mention that an
"SCNT" does not simply, conveniently morph into human embryonic stem cells.
The SCNT, code word for a new human embryo, will need to grow and develop for
five or six days, to 100-150 cells, before one of Dr. West's employees can
extract his or her stem cells, killing him or her in the process. Odd they
should have forgotten to mention this!
Panelists steadfastly refused to
describe this process as cloning human beings. This is just about "cloning
cells." The cells are not really human. They're alive, but not the result of
the union of a sperm and an egg. In Ron Green's view, they're a new biologic
organism that cannot think or feel. Best not to think of them as human. Let's
call them "activated eggs," Green suggests, then we can cannibalize them with
a clear conscience.
Then Dr. West flourished his trump card! A
six-month moratorium on ACT's cloning research will cost 541,800 lives! Pushed
to explain, West admitted his estimate came from multiplying a very rough
"guesstimate" 3,000 people who die daily "from a degenerative conditions" by
180 days. But he wasn't sure if that included all cancer victims. The
preposterous claim assumes that ACT's research will fully cure every
potentially fatal disease afflicting humanity (forever? they'll be immortal?)
And it does not take into account cures from other therapies. This is not
science. It's hucksterism.
The spectacle of attempted
conscience-killing to gain support for human cloning should help us all to
realize how precious a conscience is. My prayer this season of grace, is that
we all get to know our consciences
better.
___________________________
Susan Wills is associate
director for education, USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.
__________________________________
Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202)
541-3070