I had never thought about this heart-breaking dimension of IVF. Ugh.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
My body + your child = my choice?
How does condom use increase the AIDS problem?
If many of the African women who are in danger of contracting AIDS will do so from their already-infected husbands, and if sexual abstinence is not a realistic option for those women, how does the use of condoms increase the problem of AIDS in Africa? Did Pope Benedict mean that the distribution of condoms will send a message of support for sexual promiscuity, thereby decreasing current levels of abstinence and marital fidelity? If so, does that match up with the facts on the ground in Africa? A fuller explanation of the Pope's rationale would be helpful here, and I can't seem to find one in the mainstream news coverage of his comments.
UPDATE: A reader sends this Vatican transcript of the interview (in Italian), along with this partial, very rough translation.
SECOND UPDATE: I'm substituting a clearer translation (thanks to Marc DeGirolami):
I would say the opposite: I think that the more effective reality, more present at the head of the battle against AIDS, with its movements and its diverse realities, is exactly the Catholic Church. I think of the Community of Sant'Egidio that does so much, visibly and invisibly, for the fight against AIDS, of the Camilliani, of all of the Sisters who are available to the sick . . . . I would say that the AIDS problem cannot be overcome solely with PR slogans. If there is no soul, if Africans do not help themselves, the scourge of AIDS cannot be resolved by the distribution of prophylactics: to the contrary, the risk is to augment the problem. The solution can be found only in twin labors: the first, a humanization of sexuality, that is a spiritual and human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another, and second, also a true friendship most of all for suffering people, the availability, also with sacrifices, with personal renouncements, in order to be with the suffering. And these are the factors that help and that bring visible progress. Therefore, I would say that this is our twin strength of renewing man internally, and to give spiritual and human strength for just behavior with respect of one's own and others' bodies, as well as the capacity to suffer with the suffering, to remain constant in trying situations. It seems to me that this is the correct (or just) answer, and that the Church does this and so offers a very great and important contribution. We thank all of those that do it.
Also, Ryan Anderson has posted a helpful essay on the topic by two AIDS researchers. An excerpt:
It has been clearly established that few people outside a handful of high-risk groups use condoms consistently, no matter how vigorously condoms are promoted. Inconsistent condom usage is ineffective—and actually associated with higher HIV infection rates due to “risk compensation,” the tendency to take more sexual risks out of a false sense of personal safety that comes with using condoms some of the time. A UNAIDS-commissioned 2004 review of evidence for condom use concluded, “There are no definite examples yet of generalized epidemics that have been turned back by prevention programs based primarily on condom promotion.”
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Subsidiarity and TARP Money
I posted a few months ago about what I see as a subsidarity angle to the banking crisis -- the relative soundness of many local, community banks as compared to the larger institutions getting most of the bail-out money. Here are two more examples of this. Locally, a fine regional bank, TCF Bank, is planning on returning $361 million in TARP money that it feels it doesn't need. Indeed, Bill Cooper, the Chairman of TCF, argues accepting the money has put it at a "competitive disadvantage." Not so locally (but perhaps of more interest to Rick), Alaska's local banks seem to be doing quite well, thank you. (HT James Hood, an Opinionated Catholic blogger.)
"The United States does not torture."
As we acknowledge the emerging Obama Administration policies that stand in tension with human dignity, we should also stay abreast of the expanding body of evidence detailing the Bush Administration's far-from-stellar record on that front.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Cloning and Embryonic Stem Cell Research—forward to the past
I have read with interest the thread that Michael Scaperlanda initiated regarding the emerging debate in the United States regarding embryonic stem cell research and human cloning. Having worked on this issue for some time in the international sphere, I would like to offer these several reflections regarding these momentous matters that I have developed over the recent past.
I think it safe to say that today the Church is largely supportive of scientific research geared to bettering the human condition, and this is especially true of most research in the medical sciences geared to promoting human welfare—all human welfare. In the context of the re-emerging national debate on stem cell research, it is important to take stock of the fact that the Church adds its voice to those who hold that the procurement of human stem cells, as long as they are not harvested from live embryos, that is, so-called “adult” stem cells, for medical research can provide and has provided the path for many positive breakthroughs for morally acceptable medical treatments for a wide variety of ailments; however, the use of embryonic stem cells is not.
Notwithstanding the “promises” associated with arguments to permit embryonic stem cell research, it must be acknowledged that research had already progressed with adult stem cells from bone marrow, cord blood and other mature tissues; however, embryonic stem cell research has not enjoyed the success or progress to success claimed by its advocates. In this context, we need to recall the falsified claims made by a Korean scientist that led to his resignation and placing into question many of the claims about the merits of embryonic stem cell research that he advanced.While there had been claims of success in developing embryonic stem cells, even in some animal experiments, this turned out not to be the case.
One important basis for the objection of using embryonic stem cells was the fact that it necessitated the creation of human embryos with the intention of destroying them. While the goals of aiding sick people seem quite noble, this was incompatible with respect for the dignity of the human being. We must also take stock of the indisputable fact that cloned embryos would be indistinguishable from embryos created by in vitro fertilization.
From the medical and scientific perspective, it is vital to be clear on the nature of the embryo. As O’Rahilly and Müller state in their 1996 Human Embryology and Teratology, “It is to be remembered that at all stages the embryo is a living organism, that is, it is a going concern with adequate mechanisms for its maintenance ....” As they further posit, “life is continuous, as is also human life, so that the question ‘When does (human) life begin?’ is meaningless in terms of ontogeny. Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.”
There is a need to be clear about the meaning of terms used in the debates surrounding human cloning. While most of us may not have foreseen the scientific development of human cloning technology even a few years ago, we can neither ignore nor deny generally the important contributions that scientific development makes to human beings and their improvement on numerous fronts. But science can be used in ways not geared to the service of humanity. It can be misguided thereby harming rather than advancing the individual and the common good. While those who support embryonic stem cell research argue that the goal is to aid humans plagued by diseases that presently escape cures, their project can be used in such as way as to constitute a disservice to human beings.
The fundamental distinction between adult stem cell cloning and embryonic cloning is that a new human existence is not generated with adult stem cell cloning; however, new life is created with embryonic cloning. In the case of cloning technologies that employ the adjectives “reproductive,” “therapeutic,” “scientific,” or “research,” a new human life is brought into the world through the creation of an embryo through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) or similar technologies. These technologies are designed to generate an embryo like the embryo that each of us was in the earliest stages of our human life.
Embryonic cloning raises critical issues in bioethics and morality. The cloning techniques I just listed are alike in that they require the creation of new human embryos. In “reproductive” cloning, the goal is to develop a child who will eventually become a mature adult. The embryo is implanted in a womb (human or artificial) and promoted through nine months of development until the baby's birth. Hollywood did this in the film “The Boys from Brazil” where Dr. Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor, escapes to South America with a sample of Adolph Hitler’s DNA and clones many new young Hitlers. While some organizations like the Raelians claimed to have reproduced a cloned human baby, evidence supporting these claims has not materialized as of yet.
“Research” cloning differs from “reproductive” cloning only in the context of the objective. Whereas reproductive cloning is directed toward the end of producing a new walking, talking person, the objective of “research” cloning differs in that the embryo is generated for the sole purpose of extracting stem cells from the evolving human life. While this embryo is cloned to enable the extraction of cellular material, its inevitable destiny is to be ultimately and premeditatively destroyed. However its brother or sister embryo could be destined for reproductive ends. But in the final analysis, the difference between “reproductive” cloning and “research” cloning is non-existent. The distinction is only in the objective of the procedure but not the procedure itself.
There is no doubt that the cloned human embryo is a human being. From the very beginning of its existence, it is a unique human life that will eventually mature through its natural progression in which every person has joined. It is at the entrance of the continuum of human life. This human life has commenced the natural vocation of fetus, birth, maturation, and death. Unlike those of us who continued this natural progression, the embryo produced for “research” is destined for a planned, premature death when the stem cells necessary for the research to proceed, but which are also necessary of the embryo to continue his or her life, are removed from the embryo.
In many discussions by intelligent, often highly educated people throughout the world today, the reality and the science of human embryology is often disregarded when the case of embryonic stem cell research is under discussion. I suspect that a source of this view is related to the thinking—or lack of thinking—taken by pro-abortion advocates who use language that denies the scientific reality of the human life the procedures which they advocate will take. While formulaic norms about human existence may be limited in both value and scope, there is something to be said about the intersection of right reason of the Catholic intellectual tradition and the formulation of ethical norms that guide the moral reasoning essential to sound scientific research.
Does the right reason that directs us to the transcendent, moral order justify research on embryos that inevitably leads to their destruction? The drive to conduct such destructive experimentation on the nascent human life of cloned embryos is strong in our world today. But such research, if it were permitted to continue, defies the dignity to which each human being, each person is entitled.
To ban “reproductive” cloning only, without prohibiting “research” cloning, would be to allow the production of individual human lives with the intention of destroying these lives as part of the process of using them for scientific research. The early human embryo, not yet implanted into a womb (natural or artificial), is nonetheless a human individual, with a human life, and evolving as an autonomous organism towards its full development into a human fetus. Its location does not determine the reality of its ontological nature. Destroying this embryo is therefore a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate suppression of an innocent human being.
Another major problem involves the number of human eggs that would be needed to carry on the research necessary to advance the claims of advocates for embryonic stem cell research. Pressure on women to donate eggs and to increase their egg production through financial and other incentives would likely emerge. The past revelations of the current scandal emerging from the Korean program sponsored by Seoul National University and the Korean national government support the grave concerns about the pressures applied to women to donate, sell, or provide eggs through other means. Associated with the problems of egg collection is the potential use for “drug therapies” that would increase the promotion of egg production but carrying grievous health risks for the woman who takes such drugs in order to increase her egg production. In short, serious are the problems associated with securing the vast number of human eggs that would be needed and the exploitation of the women who might be induced to supply them. This process would use the body of women as a reservoir of eggs without any consideration being given to the number of donations and her procreative future. She would become one stage in an assembly line of human life destined for destruction.
Associated with the number of eggs needed for stem cell research requiring the production of new human embryos are the catalysts for a global market in human life. Human cloning would encourage the development of a trade in cloned human embryos and their derivatives for scientific research or for industrial research and development purposes. The massive demand for human eggs would probably affect the poor and marginalized of the world bringing a new type of injustice into existence. Women from developing countries might be more likely to serve as sources for eggs in order to receive a small compensation that could mean much to her and her family if she has one. The world has made great progress in eradicating slavery even though this curse still exists and flourishes in parts of the world today. But while progress may be made on reducing traditional forms of slavery, a new form of slavery would be involved in the market of human embryos needed for stem cell research since human life, like slaves of the present and past, would become a commodity available for purchase on sale on a global market.
One other immediate concern accompanies these problems. Scientists have made great strides in mapping the human genome. With the securing of a thriving industry in manufacturing embryos for research purposes, there would lurk the temptation for genetic manipulation. In other words, the manufacturing of embryos for research could open doors for altering the genetic code or other forms of genetic manipulation to produce a more perfect embryo that would in turn produce more perfect stem cells. The foundation for creation of a super-race looms in the future.
During the final stages of the international debate in which I took part in late 2004, some countries promoting “therapeutic” or “research” cloning advanced the views of Lord May, President of the Royal Society (the United Kingdom’s National Academy of Science) that the banning of research cloning involving the creation of new embryos would be “an act of intellectual vandalism comparable to papal censorship of Galileo and Copernicus.” When he signed his recantation of the heliocentric theory, it was subsequently reported by Galileo’s supporters that he uttered these words, “And yet ... it [the Earth] still moves.” Thus, we must not today forget that undisputed science demonstrates that the human embryo is human life, and this life is one in which we all shared at the beginning of our own respective existence. To borrow from Galileo, it might thus be said of the embryo (whether produced by cloning or IVF technology) that is intended for destruction by stem cell research, “And yet ... it lives.” It is not simply a clump of cells that can be exploited and then discarded. It is a human life that lives. And are we not called to protect this precious gift of human life not only for now but for our future posterity as well?
RJA sj
Are DOMA laws "religious violence?"
Jon Pahl writes that DOMA laws are a form of "religious violence." Though I share some of his misgivings about prohibitions on same-sex marriage, I find his analysis unhelpful to the conversation. The traditional definition of marriage has been shaped by religion, to be sure, but also by broader biological and cultural norms. Equating the failure to change that definition with the imposition of a religious hierarchy takes the "public reason" requirement to absurd levels. As for the legal merits, here's the crux of his argument: "It is a violation of the First Amendment's protection of free association to inhibit by law some forms of association that pose no harm to the common good, and a violation of the freedom from an established religion when religiously-inspired exclusions are written into law." Putting aside his strange interpretation of the right of association, the very point that is being contested in SSM debates (at least the thoughtful versions) is whether extending marriage to same-sex couples will harm the common good. It does not advance the conversation -- and, in my estimation, does much to inhibit the conversation -- when one brackets that central dispute as though it has been conclusively settled, then attaches the worst of intentions to those who oppose SSM.
The Clone Wars continued
Last week I speculated that the desire to permit cloning was behind the push to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research. This morning the New York Times endorsed cloning without ever using the word:
President Obama seems open to the possibility of moving beyond the surplus embryos. His announcement placed few boundaries on stem cell research beyond requiring it to be scientifically worthy, responsibly conducted and compliant with the law.
He gave the National Institutes of Health free rein to devise guidelines governing what kinds of research can be supported and what ethical strictures will be placed on it.
Let us hope that the N.I.H. broadens the range of stem cells that can be studied.
Scientists believe that one way to obtain the matched cells needed to study diseases is to use a cell from an adult afflicted with that disease to create a genetically matched embryo and extract its stem cells. This approach — known as somatic cell nuclear transfer — is difficult, and no one has yet done it.
Another approach — known as induced pluripotent stem cells — has shown that adult skin cells can be converted back to a state resembling embryonic stem cells without ever creating or destroying an embryo. Some experts think that approach may be the most promising, for moral and practical reasons.
Even so, work on genetically matched embryonic stem cells would still be important. They may be the best way to study the earliest stages of a disease, or prove superior for other purposes. They will almost certainly be needed as a standard to judge the value of the induced pluripotent cells.
When the N.I.H. sets the rules for federally financed research, the main criterion should be whether a proposal has high scientific merit.
Ryan Anderson comments here.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The Religious Violence of "Defending Marriage"
Sightings 3/12/09
The Religious Violence of "Defending
Marriage"
Jon Pahl
[Jon Pahl is Professor of the History
of Christianity in North America at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at
Philadelphia. He recently edited and published An American
Teacher: Coming of Age and Coming Out, the Memoirs of Loretta
Coller (Infinity Publishing, 2009).]
A recent article in The Atlantic and recently released Lutheran documents give good reasons to revisit the status of gays and lesbians across American society. Unfortunately, few commentators to date have addressed the most troubling development of the past few years: the growth of DOMA Laws, or "Defense of Marriage Acts." These laws are forms of religious violence.
The Federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, stipulates that for the purpose of federal laws and operations, "the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." According to domawatch.org – a website sponsored by supporters of these laws – thirty-seven states now have some form of DOMA Laws on the books. The rationales for such defensive laws are often couched in neutral, "secular", or "naturalist" language. But the move to establish such laws came from religious groups, notably conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons. And the logic and appeal of these laws also originates in religion, and functions as a form of violence. Six theses can clarify the contours of the religious violence embedded in these laws.
1) DOMA Laws violate sacred texts. Many of the arguments against gay and lesbian civil unions or marriage appeal to biblical texts from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, or I Corinthians. But such arguments impose upon the texts a twentieth century understanding of sexual identity alien to the Jewish or Hellenistic cultures in which these texts arose.
2) DOMA Laws elevate heterosexual marriage to idolatrous status. In some communities of faith, defending "marriage" has become all but an item of confessional status (it is absent from any historic Christian Confessions). This arrogates to a majority – heterosexuals – special privileges (economic, social, and spiritual) not available to sexual minorities.
3) DOMA Laws scapegoat gays and lesbians. As Rene Girard argues, scapegoating is a chief manifestation of religious violence. It is difficult to see what real threat is posed to heterosexual intimacy, much less to civil society, by the desire of homosexuals for similar rights. It is easy to see how DOMA laws organize consent over and against a relatively voiceless and powerless group.
4) DOMA Laws sacrifice homosexual rights, and damage civil society, in the interest of religious purity. One measure of the justice in any society is how well it cares for vulnerable members. Sexual difference marks individuals as both vulnerable and "dangerous." And as Mary Douglass showed, any "danger" against which a law must defend is invariably constructed around some purity interest. DOMA Laws require gays and lesbians to sacrifice rights others take for granted, and render them subject to legalized forms of exclusion and discrimination. They damage the deep trust that is the most important social practice in civil society.
5) DOMA Laws confuse legislation with religion, and violate the First Amendment, as Ann Pellegrini and Janet Jakobsen have argued. It is entirely permissible (although ethically subject to scrutiny) for private communities to shape the boundaries of association in whatever ways members agree upon. It is a violation of the First Amendment's protection of free association to inhibit by law some forms of association that pose no harm to the common good, and a violation of the freedom from an established religion when religiously-inspired exclusions are written into law.
6) DOMA Laws perpetuate an association of sex with power, and thereby do damage to any sacramental sensibility that might remain in association with even heterosexual marriage. As Hendrik Hartog and other historians have shown, marriages have shifted in the modern era from patriarchal patterns of coverture to social contracts in which couples seek mutual fulfillment. Such contracts might be compatible with a sacramental sensibility, since they entail pledges of sexual fidelity and commitments to share social resources and responsibilities, along with (one might argue) other gifts of God. DOMA Laws associate sexual fidelity with legislated forms of coercive power, and inhibit the deep trust and mutuality intrinsic to modern (and sacramental) marriage. They establish hierarchies of relationships, and associate heterosexual unions (and sexual practices) with dominance.
DOMA Laws have been passed with the support and lobbying of religious groups. Such laws point, unfortunately, to a deep tendency of religions to consolidate power through exclusion, as Miroslav Volf has so cogently shown; these laws have no rationale for their existence apart from that exclusion. People who wish to "defend" [against] corrosive influences on marriage – and I count myself as one – might actually find allies among gays and lesbians who desire public recognition for their pledges of fidelity and their commitments to share resources and responsibilities with one another. A true defense of marriage would not involve mean-spirited exclusions, but would embrace practical policies that strengthen deep trust and support families facing economic challenges.
References:
Paul Elie’s article in The Atlantic,"God, Grace, and Sex," is online as "The Velvet Reformation" at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/archbishop-canterbury/2.
The Social Statement "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" and the ECLA’s recommendations on ministry practices are online at http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Social-Statements-in-Process/JTF-Human-Sexuality.aspx.
----------
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Call for Papers: Religious Legal Theory
“Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field”
Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
Seton Hall University School of Law
Newark, New Jersey
Thursday-Friday, November 12-13, 2009
Seton Hall Law School will host a conference on Religious Legal Theory beginning Thursday morning, November 12 and ending Friday afternoon, November 13, 2009. Religious legal theory—the study of religiously-informed legal theory and its contributions—has become an area of law in which scholars of law and other disciplines have recently shown great interest.
In his address at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, AALS President John Garvey emphasized the importance of religious perspectives on law. Major university presses have published volumes on the intersection of faith, legal theory and theology (“Faith and Law: How Religious Traditions from Calvinism to Islam View American Law” (Cochran, ed. NYU Press 2007); “The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics and Human Nature” (Witte and Alexander, eds. Columbia University Press 2006); “Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought” (McConnell, Cochran & Carmella, eds. Yale University Press 2001)). Established legal scholars have published work in law reviews offering explicitly religious perspectives. The Journal of Law and Religion publishes symposia on topics such as “Emerging Applications of Jewish Law in American Legal Scholarship,” and The Journal of Catholic Social Thought offers symposia on a variety of topics, both global and domestic. Numerous blogs and other non-traditional publishing venues are devoted to serious reflection on religious conceptions of law and public good.
We invite interested scholars to submit abstracts of proposed papers. Scheduled speakers include Samuel Levine (Professor of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law), David Skeel (S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, University of Pennsylvania School of Law), Amy Uelmen (Director, Institute on Religion, Law and Lawyer’s Work, Fordham Law School), and Robert Vischer (Associate Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law).
The symposium will assess the “state of the field” of religious legal theory, consolidating the advances and charting new directions for religious perspectives on law and public policy. We welcome contributions from persons of various religious perspectives and particularly hope to foster ecumenical dialogue across the Christian, Jewish, Muslim as well as Eastern religious traditions. In particular, we hope to gather law professors, theologians, political scientists, sociologists, and scholars in other disciplines whose papers would discuss the following areas or related themes:
1) Overview of current religious legal theory: themes, publication venues, influence.
2) Challenges to religious legal theory: responses to and dialogue with pragmatism, positivism, critical legal studies, and other schools of thought within the academy.
3) Contributions and implications of religious legal theory: examples of religious concepts that foster renewed understandings of law and of the relationship between doctrinal reform in religion and law.
4) Directions for religious legal theory: influencing the academy, policymakers, the bench and bar.
Presentations of papers will be 20 minutes long to allow time for discussion.
Abstracts for proposed papers, and inquiries, should be sent to Professor David Opderbeck ([email protected]) no later than May 15. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words. Presenters will be notified by June 30. For presenters, group rates at a local hotel will be available, conference meals will be provided, and limited funding may be available for transportation.
The conference is being planned by Professor Opderbeck, Professor Angela Carmella and Professor John Coverdale of Seton Hall University School of Law.
Those interested in the topic but not presenting papers are encouraged to attend the conference. Registration fees will be set at a time closer to the conference date.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Cardinal Mahony to Lecture at Univ. Detroit Mercy
Friend of MOJ and Univ. Detroit Mercy law professor Andy Moore asked that I post the following announcement of what looks to be a very interesting and timely event>
University of Detroit Mercy School of Law
11th McElroy Lecture on Law and Religion
"Immigration, the Rule of Law and the Common Good"
featuring his Eminence
Cardinal Roger Mahony
Archbishop of Los Angeles
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
5:30-6:30 PM
Sts. Peter & Paul Jesuit Church
629 East Jefferson Ave.
Detroit, Michigan
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