Is Stem Cell Research right or wrong?

I write to you today with the news that New Jersey has voted ‘no’ to spending state money on Stem Cell research. This is both a good and bad thing. First, with Jersey taxes being so ridiculously high, its good that we’re not spending additional money on something even more burdensome. This is bad because supporting morally right stem cell research is a good thing to do. The question is then, what is morally right stem cell research? We must find the answer because states are proposing to do research in this promising area and we must guide our legislature in the right way.

Lets begin with some basic information. Respect for human life is a center point of living a life of Christ. Life is more precious than any thing that we have ever been given. Valuing that life, from its beginning to its natural end is important to do because it demonstrates to G-d that you and I love life as much as He does. It is from this viewpoint of life that the question of ‘Is Stem Cell Research right or wrong?’ can be addressed.

Human life is most precious of all life for humans carry within them a soul, a tiny piece of the infinite G-d, perfect and divine in every way that G-d is. So much does G-d love you that he was willing to come to this world in human form and endure suffering and death just for you! This is so that you could come to know him and obtain one day the gift of living by his side for all eternity. But, I digress. Because you carry such a gift of a godlike presence within you (note the lower-case g), your life has value beyond measure. So do the lives of everyone else.

We as people are called to use our lives to help the lives of others. Unless it is in the act of defending another’s life, we should look to help others without irreparably harming our own precious life. Stem cell research can be right in many ways, following this consistent guideline.

First, adult stem cell research which has remarkable promise is certainly a right thing to do. This is when a human (no matter the age) uses cells that have the ability to reproduce into other forms without harming the human self. Since the body can reproduce the missing stem cells, they are replenished soon after extraction. Volunteering for this is like giving blood, a noble and wonderful thing to do for others.

Now on to the tricky part of embryonic stem cell research. When harvested from unused organs that don’t impact the life of a embryo or newly born human, this type of stem cell is perfectly fine and moral. Its important to pay attention to the consistency of my message – this is simply life using itself to help others without causing irrepable harm. Since this is the case for a baby, the child no longer needs its embryonic cells and thus it causes the child no harm to give them up for others.

The only time embryonic stem cell harvesting is wrong is when my message of life is no longer followed. This would be when harvesting the cells comes from the destruction or irreparable harming of one human to benefit another. To kill or permanently damage an embryo or a child to harvest their stem cells is thus wrong.

The question becomes more sticky because some will argue that an embryo isn’t a human life yet and thus to grow embryos to kill them is perfectly right. Of course, this gets into the question of ‘when does life begin?’ and quite simply, no one really knows exactly when this happens. G-d has eluded to it in scripture as occuring before the baby is born as in one (of many) examples, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child lept in her womb” (Luke 1:41) which indicates that the child was happy to hear Mary’s arrival, just as his mother Elizabeth was. The child had the ability to sense emotion and thus must indeed be alive. I will plan to write more on this question as time goes on.

The Church thus maintains in order to “play it safe”, life begins at conception and although it could be debated still, there’s really no scientific way to observe it by measurement. So I maintain that from the moment of conception, the preciousness of life must be maintained. Thus, harvesting cells in an destructive way from an embryo (i.e., post-conception, pre-birth) of a human beign for any reason is morally wrong.