The Tiresome Argument

By | November 30, 2004
5 Comments

Ever since the old site
crashed and burned, we’ve been periodically re-running entries from there under
the brand name "Speculist Classic.&quot When an old entry can be
brought over to the new site in the context of the current discussion, so much
the better. Such was the case yesterday when I was writing about an interesting
new approach
to stem cell research. This older post seemed to go along with that story nicely,
providing an overview of what I refer to as the "tiresome argument"
in the new post.

So, for those wondering why I was re-running such an old post, there’s you’re
reason. Thanks for the link, Glenn.

UPDATE: Rand
Simberg has some interesting, related thoughts. Also, check out this interesting essay by Amba.

UPDATE II: Daniel
Moore takes issue with my use of the terms "clone" and "luddite,"
and grasps for a label to stick on "philosophical luddites" such as
myself who espouse:

idiotic assumptions that anyone who has any sort of misgivings about cloning
and stem cells is a luddite

I won’t go into the definition of "clone," as it is being thoroughly
discussed in the comments to Moore’s entry. However, I will take issue with
the above characterization. I don’t think that people who have misgivings about
these matters are luddites; I have a fair share of my own misgivings. Kass has
earned the title because of his consistent
philosophical opposition to life extension, and his apparent
inclination to see that opposition written into law.

Also, he has little quirks like being offended at the sight of people eating
ice cream in public. But that doesn’t make him a luddite. I think the appropriate
term there is "buzzkill."

My Little Bud Grows Up

The Longevity Meme reports on a remarkable achievement by researchers in Korea:

The Next Step in Therapeutic Cloning (Thursday February 12 2004)

As reported by Wired (and in numerous other places), Korean researchers have accomplished the next successful step in therapeutic cloning and stem cell medicine: reliably extracting stem cells from cloned human embryos. As the Wired article says, “a Korean woman now has a set of cells that could one day replace any damaged or diseased cell in her body with little worry of rejection, if researchers can get stem cells to work therapeutically.” The scientists have even managed to create a new stem cell line from this work, which is very good news, given the limited number of lines currently available. A New York Times article provides a good introduction to the medical significance of this advance.

Leon Kass, the Luddite General of the United States, was quick to comment:

‘The age of human cloning has apparently arrived: today, cloned blastocysts for research, tomorrow cloned blastocysts for babymaking,’ he wrote in an e-mail message. ‘In my opinion, and that of the majority of the Council, the only way to prevent this from happening here is for Congress to enact a comprehensive ban or moratorium on all human cloning.’

You know, I’m not really for or against reproductive cloning. There are rational arguments as to why it’s an okay idea, and rational arguments as to why it would cause problems. But this superstituous dread with which Kass approaches the subject is truly astounding to me. He is apparently not upset that a blastocyst was killed (not in this quote, anyway). If that were what bothered him, at least his position would be consistent with the Catholics:

Richard M. Doerflinger, deputy director for pro-life activities at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, ‘This is a move toward creating new human lives solely to destroy them in research.’ He termed cloning ‘the ultimate way of treating life as an object, as an instrument to an end.’

I can see the logic of that, even if I don’t agree with it. The Catholics define humanity all the way down to the freshly fertilized zygote. A blastocyst is therefore “human” and it’s wrong to use a “human” for research, not to mention killing it. Agree with it or disagree with it, at least that’s a coherent position.

Contrast it with Kass’ position. His great fear is that someday somebody is going to create one of these blastocysts and not kill it. And yet I bet he would describe himself as being “pro-life.”

Go figure.

  • http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com Joe

    Before you recycled a post from nine months ago shouldn’t you have done some research? Your assessment of Kass’ views is so laughably inaccurate that its obvious you don’t know the first thing about the man. Why didn’t you go to the PCB’s website (www.bioethics.gov) and find out why Kass opposes cloning?

    Human beings grow out of something that may be living human tissue, but that is not in and of itself a human being.

    You can’t be serious, can you? That is the silliest thing I’ve read since my last visit to DU. Why in the world would Glenn link to such a pathetic post?

  • http://hertzlinger.blogspot.com Joseph Hertzlinger

    One way to look at change that occurs at conception is that the egg is human both before and after, but before conception it’s part of the mother’s body and after it’s part of its own body.

  • http://ambivablog.typepad.com/ambivablog amba

    Here’s another, related musing on stem cell research and the objections to it, titled “Selective Absolutism”:

    http://ambivablog.typepad.com/ambivablog/2004/11/selective_absol.html

  • bbbeard

    >>If we, as a society, can define humanity as starting somewhere after the fourth week of embryonic development, we open up the possibility of tremendous medical advances. This needn’t be a new front in the abortion war.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    Joseph:

    One way to look at change that occurs at conception is that the egg is human both before and after, but before conception it’s part of the mother’s body and after it’s part of its own body.

    That’s a logical approach. But from a practical standpoint, there isn’t much of a “body” to speak of until sometime after conception.

    Triple B:

    My objection to this wishful thinking is that it has no basis in reality. As a practical matter, there is no way for us “as a society” to place any limits whatsoever on therapeutic cloning, once a protocol is in place for creating fetuses for use in the therapy of other persons.

    As one of Rand Simberg’s commentors points out, this is really an issue of the government deciding, by fiat, what is and what is not a human being. It would be fine by me if they drew the line much closer to conception than they currently do.