One More Thing

While we're at it, I might as well make clear why I think the hypothetical may actually matter for more than just challenging Michael S.'s claim.

To be clear, for starters, the magisterium says embryonic stem cell research and abortion are wrong, and that is good enough for me.  I can understand the logic of what the hierarchy says on these issues, and while I can appreciate alternative positions, I am willing to accept the Church's judgment on faith.  In other words, I do not dissent from these teachings, although I do have questions about how best (or appropriately) to translate these moral teachings into reality through the law.

How does the hypothetical relate to this?  As we've been discussing, I have concerns about how to weigh the injustice of abortion and stem cell research against other injustices, particularly as relates to the problem of deciding for which party to vote.  I think the hypothetical provides some perspective on how to go about doing that.  It suggests to me, for example, that the claim that the loss of life due to stem cell research makes it impermissible to ever vote for a Democrat oversimplifies the analysis by more than a little bit.  A mechanism for weighing these issues that ignores the difference between an eight-cell embryo that is destroyed in research and a child killed on the streets of Baghdad, or that equates stem cell research, however wrong it is, with Nazi medical experiments, will not do.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I read a while back about a new technique in which one cell was taken from the embryo and used to generate stem cells for research, leaving the embryo capable of developing into a healthy child.  I know that this technique (of removing one cell without destroying the embryo) is used within IVF to screen for genetic defects before transferring embryos in a mother, and I understand that it has been used with a great deal of success for those diagnostic purposes for some time.  I have not yet been able to track down an official Church evaluation of the use of this technique to generate stem cells for research and would appreciate it if another MOJer (or a reader) could direct me towards something.