What kind of respect are we talking about?
We keep hearing about public objections to or fears about the creation of human-animal embryos for research purposes, but the objections and fears that are cited are, frankly, rather pathetic. They also seem to be very much in the minority. In fact it looks as if the news media are creating and inflating these objections and fears, more than they are reporting on their existence. Oh, well that’s a surprise, that’s never happened before. Surely?
The Indy offers some background, including on the opposition.
There are many pressure groups and religious organisations who have voiced their opposition on the grounds that it is unethical or immoral to mix germ cells from humans and animals to create potentially viable embryos. They believe that it undermines respect for human life, and some believe it is also demeaning to animals.
And…that’s it, at least as far as this article goes. It undermines ‘respect,’ it’s ‘demeaning.’ Sounds familiar, doesn’t it – sounds like the wack objections to gay marriage: it undermines respect for the institution of marriage. How and why it does that is never spelled out – what that even means is never spelled out. People who oppose the opposition ask and ask and ask to have the reasoning made plain, but…if they’ve had much success, the results are being carefully hidden.
Why, exactly, does the creation of a certain kind of egg, which will be destroyed within fourteen days, undermine respect for human life? I want to know. What’s the thinking here? That thirteen-day old embryos might end up being dressed up in little outfits and enrolled in school? That they might start marrying people’s children? That they’ll make all the buses and movie theatres and supermarkets too crowded? That they’ll jostle us off the sidewalk and humiliate us? That they’ll want to spend the night in our houses and have their horrible unthinkable disgusting squelchy sex right there with us in the next room listening in fear and horror?
That’s it, isn’t it. It’s sex. The many pressure groups and religious organisations are afraid that they will want to have sex with each other where we’ll be able to hear; they’re afraid they will want to have sex with us. They’ll seduce us, they’ll lie down on top of us in the night when we’re asleep and impregnate us with their horrible hybrid pinkish fibrous mucousy slimy – oh, jesus, help me.
Okay maybe that’s not it, maybe I’m being unfair, as usual. But what is it then? What, exactly, is it? What is it about some embryos in a lab at Newcastle or King’s College London that causes respect for human life to be undermined? Perhaps it’s that potential murderers will, as soon as such embryos exist, no longer think ‘No, I mustn’t, it would be wrong,’ but instead will think ‘Hey, there are those little embryos at Newcastle, they have some cow DNA mixed in – not very much, admittedly, but still some, so what is human life worth? Not much, obviously; therefore I will murder that co-worker who gets on my nerves, because why not?’ Is that it? Well, if so, could it be that the worry is ever so slightly far-fetched and, as it were, strained? That the likelihood of that looks no more robust than the likelihood of any other random fanciful absurd scenario one could come up with? Maybe the next time I take the 74 bus one of the passengers will decide the existence of tomato paste in tiny cans makes life not worth living, and so get off on Stone Way instead of 40th Street.
Why do pressure groups and religious organisations get to ‘voice their opposition’ on worthless empty meaningless grounds that way, and be considered a serious and worth-heeding opposition? Talk about undermining respect – they’re the ones who undermine respect, if you ask me: they undermine respect for human ability to oppose things for good reasons as opposed to completely factitious whimsical made-up ones. This isn’t just messing around, after all! This isn’t like old Coke versus new Coke; this is medical research that could cure horrible diseases. What business do people have opposing it for silly frivolous worked-up reasons? It’s revolting if you look at it hard enough. Is it just for the sake of the self-righteous glow? The little aura of piety? Well – that’s a crappy reason. A crappy, vain, narcissistic, beside the point reason. If we want to fret about respect for human life, why not fret a great deal more about the lives lost or ruined by Parkinson’s or Motor Neurone disease than about some mysterious vague unspecified general ‘life’ that belongs to no one in particular but would be less respected because of those eggs? Respect for human life, indeed. Pull the other one.
Precisely! I agree, and I wish more people did.
I think the religious opposition to hybrid embryos is destined to be far more fierce than the opposition to abortion. Abortion doesn’t question the “god-given essence of humanity” in the way human/nonhuman hybrids do. At the least, the craftier theologians will have their work cut out for them: Now that the pope cancelled limbo, does this mean there will be cow-humans in heaven? What will they look like when they are resurrected on the last day?
They will look like tiny little microscopic eggs that moo ever so slightly.
…and that’s no bull.
But you might want to elucidate that bit about the tiny cans of tomato paste, life being not worth living, and the 74 bus. Not everyone is familiar with the geography of Seattle. I haven’t taken that bus in a while, but if I was going to use the Aurora Bridge for suicidal purposes, I think I’d get off at the southern, higher end. Anyway, seems to me that the 40th St. stop would be closer to it than Stone Way. Of course, if you are talking about some other town, never mind me, just explain what it’s about please because now we are curious, or at least I am…
As is often the case, I think you are a bit over the top about religious involvement in public debate.
Firstly, it is obvious that the churches are traditionally expected to have a say in ethical debates. There is a kind of proxy vote happening where ordinary people seem to think ‘Oh I am not too sure about this science stuff; I don’t know jack about it but I will look for information in hte media to decide my position.’
Editor says to journalist ‘Get me 500 words on science and it better have controversy in it!’
As a result, the journalist goes looking for someone who has anything to say in the ‘against’ case. They won’t find a theologian with an articulate position on gene splicing before deadline, so they grab any talking head in a dog collar and bob’s yer uncle.
Its a media beat-up which feeds your personal confirmatory bias, OB. As a result, you rant about strawman christians and have, as far as I can tell, minimal engagement with real ones. Right-wing blogs cherry pick news articles about idiot academics in the same way. Your example teaches me to withhold judgement about idiots in the media, because its almost certainly a beat-up.
OB: “not fret a great deal more about the lives lost or ruined by Parkinson’s or Motor Neurone disease than about some mysterious vague unspecified general ‘life’ that belongs to no one in particular but would be less respected because of those eggs? Respect for human life, indeed. Pull the other one.”
Well, my pastor Grandfather died after 20 years of savage oppression by Parkinsons and diabetes. When his beloved, my grandmother got too close to death from cancer to come and see him, he refused food and medication until he died.
Despite his being the kind of Christian you would most despise, his respect for human life was adequate to the day. His concern for others extended to acting for them in all ways in his power while he lived, according to his understanding.
And let us sincerely hope that he walks the Elysian Fields hand-in-hand with his beloved. But private virtue is not the issue here, a priori entitlement to interfere in matters of public policy simply by virtue of ‘representing’ organised religion is.
The case for excluding the 40% (or 60% or whatever) who are believers from involvement in public policy is apparently based on apoplectic fury at idiots quoted in the media. That emotional response is unbalanced, fed not by engaged knowledge so much as confirmatory bias and editorial selection.
Thus a situation where leftists choose to inform each other that a christian appointee to high office has banned teaching science in Grand Canyon Parks Service tours, and that a christian in charge of environmental matters at Federal level believes that the apocalypse is coming and the environment should be consumed to hasten it. Sorry, those were lies and so is the picture that seems to get you all cross.
But self-righteous anger is SO rewarding. Enjoy.
The thing that confuses me about this fuss is the use of the words ‘human/animal hybrid’.
I thought humans were animals?
OB: “What kind of respect are we talking about?”
The kind of respect the religious speak of is that of a servant for their master.
It is a synonym for deference. Or possiby obedience.
Wow! Invasion of the Incubi. And some succubi for the hettie blokes out there. What a post! Lovely imagery.
‘[T]he churches are traditionally expected to have a say in ethical debates …’ – ChrisPer
Yes, they are, aren’t they? Why? I remember back in about 1970 being asked by my night news editor on the now-folded Sheffield morning paper to go and get some opinion on the formation of a gay group at the university. ‘Get a church view.’ What? I refused, and the news editor was OK about it (there was journalists’ union clause then, probably still is, about being asked to write something against your conscience). Implicit in this laziness among programme makers and news editors (‘grab a vicar, see what he thinks’) is that only the church types can comment on ethics.
‘The case for excluding the 40% (or 60% or whatever) who are believers from involvement in public policy …’ – ChrisPer
Not sure anyone wants to exclude believers, just those who prattle on claiming to be speaking for the believers. I don’t mind a teacher who happens to be Christian, but wouldn’t want her Christianity to prevail in her teaching of science, for instance. I don’t mind a doctor who happens to be a Jedi as long as he keeps his light sabre away from my butt. We’ll never exclude believers per se; I don’t think that’s the point.
“The thing that confuses me about this fuss is the use of the words ‘human/animal hybrid’.”
They are, but the word ‘animal’ has the pragmatic sense in common usage of ‘non-human animal’ in much the same way that ‘natural’ is often an elision of the idea ‘existing in nature but not constructed by humans’, which is why it dosn’t seem absurd to describe a beaver’s dam as ‘natural’ but not a nuclear reactor.
Chrisper – you have a good point about the media, but I think that since 9/11 generally (and 7/7 specifically in the UK), people are more hysterically sensitive about yet cravenly receptive to any unrepresentative religious minority.
Nick S is, unfortunately entirely correct.
See here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/more_creationist_ellipses.php#commentsArea
There are many pressure groups and religious organizations who have voiced their opposition on the grounds that it is unethical or immoral to mix germ cells from humans and animals to create potentially viable embryos. They believe that it undermines respect for human life, and some believe it is also demeaning to animals.
I’ve never quite understood the fuss either – or at any rate it’s one of those ethical issues that I consider isn’t worth the effort of investigating very closely. It is one of my moral ‘molehills’ as opposed to my moral ‘hillocks’ (capital punishment) or moral ‘mountains’ (homosexual ‘marriage’, incestuous ‘marriage’, etc).
However there is the insoluble problem of life’s continuum from embryo to fetus to unborn child to infant. You write:
Why, exactly, does the creation of a certain kind of egg, which will be destroyed within fourteen days, undermine respect for human life?.
Now, step by step, replace ‘fourteen days’ by ‘fifteen days’ etc. until you reach ‘nine months’:
Why, exactly, does the creation of a certain kind of egg, which will be destroyed within nine months, undermine respect for human life?.
That sounds different – in fact, it sounds pretty ghoulish.
Clearly there’s a grey area or ‘penumbra’ between the two extremes of this continuum. Somewhere in between, as one moves from 14 days to 9 months, respect for human life does become undermined.
Perhaps it’s that potential murderers will, as soon as such embryos exist, no longer think ‘No, I mustn’t, it would be wrong,’ but instead will think ‘Hey, there are those little embryos at Newcastle, they have some cow DNA mixed in – not very much, admittedly, but still some, so what is human life worth? Not much, obviously; therefore I will murder that co-worker who gets on my nerves, because why not?’ Is that it?
Hee hee! And that’s exactly what I find myself thinking whenever I read stuff in Nature about such research… Thank you, gawdless scientists, for justifying my mayhem!
(Gleefully heads off to sharpen axe, with standard B-movie spree-killer maniacal gleam in eye…)
Meanwhile, teaching that an alleged all-powerful ‘moral authority’ doth arbitrarily grass entire nations (or, for that matter, the entire population of the planet save one guy with a boat), and sends people to an eternity of torment for saying mean things about one of his aliases is, apparently, no harm to anyone’s conception of the sanctity and dignity of life…
(Yes, it’s been said before. A few times. But still, it amuses me.)
ChrisPer,
What are you talking about? Where did I say anything about strawchristians? What I’m taking issue with is the opposition, as phrased in for instance that article in the Independent. Lazy reporting may indeed be part of the problem, just as you indicate, but that’s what I’m saying. I think that’s your self-confirming bias at work: you see strawchristians where there aren’t any.
Angiportus
Oh – that’s funny, I wasn’t even thinking of the bridge and suicide. The two stops were meant to be just completely random; the first thing that came into my head. Forgot all about the bridge. But as you say, Stone Way would be a silly stop – unless one wanted some good brisk healthful exercise just before killing self. 40th Street would be even worse. No, it was just random.
I should have worked in a reference to the troll and the poor little VW bug…
G Tingey
For the 49 thousandth time, DO NOT USE THAT WORD HERE.
Are you a hostile agent, trying to destroy TPM and B&W?
For the 47 thousandth time, what is at Pharyngula is beside the point; libel laws in the UK are NOT THE SAME as those in the US. Stop reading Pharyngula (and B&W) for a few minutes and look into the libel laws of your own country.
I could just delete every comment you’ve ever made, you know. It would be easy – the database would find them all for me, and out they’d go. I’ll do it, too, if I need to. In fact I’m very tempted to do it right now.
Belatedly, a couple of substantive points.
“Somewhere in between, as one moves from 14 days to 9 months, respect for human life does become undermined.”
Well that’s why the cutoff is 14 days. So your point is…?
“The case for excluding the 40% (or 60% or whatever) who are believers from involvement in public policy is apparently based on apoplectic fury at idiots quoted in the media.”
One, no one is attempting to make such a case (look to your own straw before you set fire to mine, dude). Two, the case for excluding purely religious reasons for opposing medical research or legal equality for gays is not in the least based on apoplectic fury at idiots quoted in the media, it is based on the idea that such reasons should be well-grounded, reasonable, rational, universalizable. I’ve said that here many times, so your putative explanation is silly.
Cybrids cyberbabe dudes wont be ruling B&Ws cyberspace I see?
OB: “Two, the case for excluding purely religious reasons for opposing medical research or legal equality for gays is…based on the idea that such reasons should be well-grounded, reasonable, rational, universalizable.”
This is, of course, EXACTLY the point.
Almost without exception (in my experience), religious “leaders” offer religious arguments during debates on issues like this.
They are entitled (like anyone) to offer such views but they should not be afforded the same status as rational arguments.
“I think you are a bit over the top about religious involvement in public debate.”
Actually, ChrisPer, I have to say that I frequently find Radio 4’s Thought for The Day commenters, albiet highly ‘respected’ and mainstream, do also have some considerable clout in Public Policy areas. No strawmen there.
“Well that’s why the cutoff is 14 days. So your point is…?”
The point is, I asssume, that the cut off point is arbitrarily chosen. Why 14 and not 15 days? Arbitrariness isn’t all that scientific.
John M,
That was indeed my point. There is irreducible dimension of subjectivity here and I’m surprised so many otherwise intelligent people seem to overlook it. People will just have to ‘agree to differ’ as to whether the limit should be 14 days or 27 days or 82 days and six hours and 56 seconds ….
At any rate one should avoid pathologising and demonising people who don’t share one’s views on this issue.
What a drag these moral debates are — round and round we go, decade after decade, century after century. good guys, bad guys … snakes and ladders, back to square one every time.
All very well, but it’s difficult to ‘agree to differ’ when the people we differ with prevent medical research from going forward on the basis of spurious sentimental unspecified vague ‘concerns.’ It’s difficult and perhaps morally wrong. Why should we just shrug and say ‘oh well’ when people block medical research for bad stupid reasons? Tell me that’s what we should do when you get MND.
Ophelia,
I’m not saying we should just shrug and say ‘oh well’. I’m just saying one shouldn’t call one’s adversaries ‘evil’ or ‘murderous’.They are in my view very mistaken, but being mistaken is not the same as being morally reprehensible.
Cathal,
You said people will just have to ‘agree to differ’, which amounts to the same thing. You also said the second thing, but don’t disown the first – it’s just above the second, in case you can’t find it. Don’t say you’re ‘just saying’ when you said more than that.
As for the substance of the second thing: I disagree, I think at times one should call one’s adversaries ‘evil’ or ‘murderous’. One of the times would be when they belong to a group that is traditionally and generally and often unthinkingly considered somehow more moral than the rest of us, when in fact in cases like this they’re much less so.
The thing about being mistaken is that that’s at least somewhat willful. It’s at least partly a product of non-thought, of accepting empty verbiage about ‘respect for life’ as meaningful and deep and of a higher morality. Armed with this blind word-induced piety, they prevent research that is likely to help cure or alleviate horrible diseases. Their concern about a very abstract and woolly ‘respect for life’ trumps their respect for the actual lives of actual people with actual diseases. I think that is a very bad thing and should not be treated with knee-jerk respect – hence I think harsh language is useful.
Furthermore – now that I take a look – what are you even talking about? Where did I call anyone either murderous or evil? You mean in comments on a different post, the one on condoms? What’s that got to do with this post? And what business do you have making a misleading remark like that?
Cathal, I’m getting very tired of you. You’re being trollish. Why don’t you take a vacation for awhile.
Cathal Copeland: “People will just have to ‘agree to differ’ as to whether the limit should be 14 days or 27 days or 82 days and six hours and 56 seconds…”
No, it is NOT a case where we can “agree to differ” because the outcome of these arguments will be a decision about what is, and what is not, permitted.
I think the idea is that “the creation of a certain kind of egg, which will be destroyed within fourteen days” undermines respect for human life because it implies that human life is something that can be created and destroyed at will in the lab, without any regard for its humanity.
Steve, a bunch of cells is NOT a “human life”. Under certain, fairly special circumstances, it MAY have the potential to become a human life. That is all.
My view is the exact opposite of yours. I think that treating a bunch of cells as if it were a human life undermines respect for human life.
Keith, the embryos are alive and human. It seems pretty clear that they’re human lives.
‘Alive’ in what sense? ‘Human’ in what sense?
‘Seems’ in what sense? ‘Pretty’ in what sense? ‘Clear’ in what sense?
It may seem pretty clear to you, but in fact it’s all highly contestable. I can demonstrate: it is not in the least clear to me that a microscopic 14 day old egg is alive and human.
Steve
Every sperm is alive and, under certain, fairly special circumstances, MAY have the potential to become a human life.
The average healty male produces thousands of sperm every second.
Do you regard these all as “human lives”?
An embryo is further along the long complicated and perilous path that leads to a human life than a sperm, but only just.
OB correctly points out that further discussion of this issue requires clarification of what we mean by the various terms used. It is, for instance, clear that our definitions differ in important ways.
Nonetheless, I stand by my original remarks.
Time for a rousing chorus of ‘Every Sperm is Sacred’ la la la.
“Keith, the embryos are alive and human. It seems pretty clear that they’re human lives.”
No they are alive and made of human tissue, just like my appendix. To be human life, I would assert that at least a nervous system is needed. I would say this, whilst arguably not sufficient, is certainly necessary.
It may interest you to know that this page is the sole site listed in response to a Google search on the phrase “disgusting squelchy sex”.
I just had to check.
Ha!
So all those sickies idly googling for ‘disgusting squelchy sex’ will be rushing over here all eager for the treat. How disappointed they will be.
[overcome by squeaks of laughter]
If it’s any consolation, the same is true for “tomato paste in tiny cans.” You do, however, have some competition for “horrible unthinkable disgusting.”
Competition?! It’s an outrage! ‘horrible unthinkable disgusting’ is mine, mine, mine!