The following piece appeared in my hometown newspaper--the Atlanta Journal-Constitution--this morning. The argument that the author makes is substantially the same argument that the distinguished Christian ethicist Gene Outka (Yale University) has made. I posted Outka's paper several months ago--but no one seemed to read it. At least, there were no comments in response to it. Any thoughts in response to the piece below? Surely this is a discussion worth having ...
The stem cell dilemma: Proceed with research, but cautiously
Lalor Cadley - For the Journal-Constitution
Saturday, November 6, 2004
This week's re-election of President Bush and California voters' approval of $3 billion for research demonstrate how divided Americans are on the procedure.
Nothing about this issue is easy --- let me say that right upfront. The science of stem cell research is extraordinarily complex. And when we talk about embryonic stem cell research, the issue moves beyond science into ethics and religion, and the field becomes even more highly charged.
I am neither a scientist nor an ethicist, but a woman of faith trying to make an informed decision, one that is morally and intellectually sound.
Scientists are asking for federal funding to do embryonic stem cell research, which they believe holds great promise for curing devastating illnesses such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis. (Stem cells are the basic building blocks for human tissues and organs.) Cures are not imminent, but over the next decade real progress may be made. Adult stem cells are available, used for blood disorders, but they do not have the broad potentialities of embryonic stem cells, many of the researchers say.
President Bush has refused to allow National Institutes of Health funding to create new embryonic stem cell lines. Destroying embryos is off-limits, he maintains, no matter how worthwhile the venture may prove to be.
Experimentation is continuing with existing stem cell lines established before 2001, but the president's decision forbids the creation of new lines with federal money. About 70 lines were estimated to be available --- but fewer than 20, it turned out, were in good enough shape to use in research.
Those who support Bush's decision argue that, even though the embryos in question are "leftovers" --- embryos that will never be implanted in a woman's uterus (and this is important to remember) --- the very fact that they are life "in potentia" means we cannot tamper with them.
Opponents of this ban, and I am one of them, believe that because the embryos will be disposed of anyway, it is wrong not to use them in an effort to alleviate real human suffering. In the hands of researchers, the embryos would be used to give life --- life to living people who suffer with crippling diseases.
Between those who would bar the door, terminate all debate, condemn as murderers those who oppose the restrictions, and those at the other extreme, who would fling the doors wide open with no restrictions, no restraints, no reverence for the sacredness of the work or the implications of what they do, are people like me --- and perhaps you --- struggling to deal with the complexities and come to a decision that reflects not only the knowledge in our minds but also the wisdom of our hearts and souls.
We should and must proceed with embryonic stem cell research, taking our lead from people of science and medical ethicists, not government legislators or ideologues. But we must do so with caution and reverence for the work and with a firm commitment never to misuse the process or the knowledge we gain --- for we are on holy ground.
Jesus was healer
Some opponents of this research have the mistaken notion that scientists will harvest these stem cells from aborted fetuses. That is not the case. The cells come from fertility clinics. They are donated by couples who no longer have need of them, and who choose to donate their surplus embryos to science. There are more than 400,000 frozen human embryos. More than 11,000 of them are available for research. Unless the ban on federal funding is lifted, they eventually may be discarded and with them the life-giving secrets they may contain.
This to me seems morally wrong and frankly senseless --- not a preservation of life but a denial of it. I don't want to claim that God is on my side (there's far too much of that going around these days), but I do believe that Jesus was a man who stood firmly on the side of life. In fact he came to Earth that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10). His entire ministry was devoted to healing --- the crippled, the blind, the leprous, the women bent and bleeding. They came to him and he healed them. He even brought to life people who had died. When laws got in the way, he broke them --- healing a suffering woman on the Sabbath to the chagrin of the religious authorities. Human suffering grieved him, and he did all he could to ease it.
The Hebrew Scriptures also show God as deeply merciful. Skimming through my book of Psalms, I find this: "When the just cry, the Most High hears and delivers them from their troubles. God is close to the brokenhearted. . . . Many are the afflictions of the just; they will be delivered from them all. God will keep guard over all their bones, not one of them shall be broken." And this: "O God, you deliver them in the day of trouble; you guard them and give them life; . . . you sustain them on their sickbeds; you heal them of all their infirmities."
Even Orrin Hatch, the conservative Republican senator from Utah, was persuaded to support embryonic stem cell research. In a letter to the secretary of health and human services, he said: "I am proud of my strong pro-life record. . . . I conclude that this research is consistent with pro-life values [and] should proceed."
God gave us the brilliance of scientists, the wonders of technology. Is it not also possible that this good God gave us these living cells, designated for destruction? Isn't it possible he gave them to us as another source of revelation --- a pathway to miraculous discoveries that will turn mourning into dancing, give life back to innocent people who are crippled, blind, in unrelenting pain?
In our effort to protect life, we must be careful not to idolize the embryo, enshrining it like a sacred cow. We mustn't let the fear of doing something wrong keep us from doing what is right.
Insisting that undifferentiated cells must be preserved only to be destroyed --- at the very least it makes no sense; at most it may be turning our backs on grace.
Lalor Cadley is a spiritual director, adult educator and freelance writer with an office in Decatur.
[Conservative columnist David Brooks has some things to say in today's New York Times that may be of interest to MOJ readers:]
November 6, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Values-Vote Myth
By DAVID BROOKS
very election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.
In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.
This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.
Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.
It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.
Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.
The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.
He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.
The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not.
The red and blue maps that have been popping up in the papers again this week are certainly striking, but they conceal as much as they reveal. I've spent the past four years traveling to 36 states and writing millions of words trying to understand this values divide, and I can tell you there is no one explanation. It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction.
In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues.
But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?
What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.
[Catholic Peter Steinfels has some interesting reflections in his "Beliefs" column in today's New York Times. Thought that some readers of this blog would be interested:]
BELIEFS The 'Moral Values' Issue
By PETER STEINFELS
he election of George W. Bush, it seems, turned on moral values.
It seems.
Hardly had the exit polls shown that 22 percent of the voters named "moral values" as the issue mattering most in their choice for president when Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, called that conclusion misleading. On the Wednesday edition of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Mr. Kohut rightly pointed out that moral values may have ranked ahead of jobs or terrorism because it was an ambiguous, appealing and catchall phrase.
It is true that if the exit polls had constructed an equivalent catchall economic category adding concern about health care and taxes to that about jobs and growth, it would have been the top concern of 33 percent of the voters. If the poll findings had combined concern about terrorism with concern about Iraq, as apparently many voters did, the resulting category would have ranked first with 34 percent of the voters.
To underscore the ambiguity of moral values, consider three of the issues often subsumed under that umbrella. Stem cell research is immensely popular. Gay marriage is not. Legal access to abortion falls somewhere in between.
And surely concern about moral values mixes revulsion at the offerings of Hollywood, cable television, the popular music industry and pornographic Web sites with defense of displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses and of reciting "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance - and who knows what else.
Furthermore, many of these concerns are stimulated and shaped artificially and emotionally by the high commands and local shock troops in the culture wars.
So level-headed observers like Mr. Kohut are wise to warn that no one quite knows what reality lies behind the moral values catchphrase. But isn't it important to find out? The fact that 80 percent of the voters listing moral values uppermost in their minds voted for Mr. Bush suggests that there is some unifying, underlying reality there. Anyone seeking to understand American political culture should be more than a little bit curious, to say nothing of Democrats contemplating the future of their party.
There are, however, several surefire ways to short-circuit such an inquiry.
Comparing the so-called values voters with jihad-driven Muslim terrorists, an equation ventured by not a few post-election analysts, will do nicely, for starters. Loosely tossing around terms like fundamentalism and theocracy is similarly effective at anesthetizing the thought processes. Then there is the leap that fretting about moral values is merely a disguise for ignorance, irrationality and intolerance.
These caricatures cast millions of citizens as ominous Others, alien invaders not from another planet but at least from another era, probably the benighted Middle Ages or the nearly as dark 1950's. Nevermind the evidence of writers and scholars as different as David Brooks, Alan Wolfe and Morris P. Fiorina that Americans are not really as deeply divided as either the metaphor of a culture war or the electoral-vote map of the red and blue states suggests.
Barack Obama, the newly elected senator from Illinois, memorably challenged the red-state, blue-state dichotomy at the Democratic convention. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states," Mr. Obama said, and "have gay friends in the red states." Perhaps he could have added something about finding supporters of the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions in blue states and conservative Christian defenders of church-state separation in the red states.
Fanaticism exists, of course, and stupidity, too. Wild claims and aggressive demands have been made in the name of moral values, often enough by figures competing for public attention. Latching upon these is an easy and tempting way to deaden the kind of empathy and imagination necessary to comprehend another perspective.
A condescending incredulity offers a slightly more sophisticated way to derail any inquiry into the moral values issues. Just treat one's own views as so established and self-evident that any questioning of them can only be a puzzling and pathological "backlash." Are there really still people out there opposed to abortion rights? How incomprehensible!
Whatever one may think of same-sex marriage, for example, it takes a real stretch to pretend that it is not a noteworthy departure from existing social and legal norms. It would also be a long shot to deny that it was the Massachusetts Supreme Court along with local officials around the nation challenging current laws by officiating at same-sex weddings who placed this on the national agenda rather than the religious right or President Bush.
Voters' emphasis on moral values has prompted talk that the culture is undergoing a sharp conservative shift. A better case can be made that the cultural shifts of recent years have almost entirely continued in a liberal direction. On Nov. 2 a significant part of the nation balked. Gay marriage has proved, at least for now, unacceptable. Meanwhile civil unions, which stirred shock and fury in Vermont only a few years ago, have almost reached the edge of being mainstream.
A final way of skirting any exploration of the moral values so many Americans say determined their presidential choice actually has considerable legitimacy. One can challenge the very idea reflected in the exit polls that moral values constitute some distinct category of public concerns.
Are not moral values also at stake in decisions about war, in drawing lines against torture, in addressing poverty or in providing desperately needed housing and health care? It has become commonplace to note that for every injunction in the Bible regarding homosexuality there are hundreds, maybe thousands regarding care for the poor. All of a nation's common life, not just sexual matters or personal behavior, is shot through with moral and ethical issues.
These points are absolutely true. But those who make them should remember that enlarging the framework of the discussion is one thing, trying to change the subject is another. Whatever this large chunk of voters may have in mind by moral values, those things need to be identified and addressed, not simply steamrolled over by pointing to other issues that may be equally moral and equally or even more important.
Suppose that these barriers to pursuing the question of moral values can be overcome. What then? The endgame should not be some expedient concession or cosmetic exercise to garner votes next time around. The endgame should be an honest discussion of the moral stances dividing Americans, each side (and there may be more than two) addressing the contending arguments at their best and not at their worst. It is not unthinkable that a few minds might be changed, and a great many people feel less alienated.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
[Thought this would be of interest. mp]
The New York Review of Books
November 18, 2004
What Is a Just War?
By Garry Wills
Click here for full article. Abstract follows:
The traditional theory of the just war covers three main topics--the
cause of war, the conduct of war, and the consequences of war. Or, in
the Scholastic tags: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum.
But most attention is given now to the middle term, the conduct of
war. That is where clear offenses are most easily identified, though
only occasionally reported and even more rarely punished. The two main
rules of jus in bello have to do with discrimination between
combatants and noncombatants, the latter to be spared as far as
possible, and proportionality, so that violence is calibrated to its
need for attaining the war's end. The claims of morality here are
recognized with difficulty in actual combat, and disputed when
recognized. Why should that be?
Monday, November 1, 2004
Sightings 11/1/04
Campaign Yearbook
-- Martin E. Marty
Having done little Monday-morning sighting of the 2004 campaign, at its end, we should, at least, look at the "flip-flops" or "changed places" among religious groups.
First, Catholics: The May 17 Sightings ("Catholic Elections") commented on how the Vatican and American bishops in 1960 assured U.S. citizens that bishops' (fatefully futile) intrusion in Puerto Rican politics (declaring it sinful for any Catholic to vote for the pro-birth control PPD) would never find a counterpart here. That first intervention under an American flag reflected only the "practical and special condition of the island," they said. It can't happen here. But it did in 2004. Many flip-flopped. Had the old anti-Catholic Protestants been rightfully wary back when they warned about Catholic power in American politics?
Second, conservative Protestants: The World Book Yearbook of 1965, for which I wrote the "Protestantism" round-up (and still do), covered the 1964 campaigns. That entry sets us up to observe more flip-flopping, role-reversals, and changes of place. Until that year, most evangelical-fundamentalist-pentecostal-conservative-Protestant groups had shunned formal involvement with politics. The first "flip" against that historic understanding occurred when "many of the more conservative Protestants" were attracted to candidate Barry Goldwater. Since then, they have gone ever further against their tradition and now have established a new one: moving from most passive and invisible to become the most active, visible, and forceful religious force of all.
Third, mainline Protestants: As for what is now called the "Protestant mainstream," a poll of denominational editors in 1964 revealed a preference for candidate Lyndon Johnson, and "the great majority of prominent church periodicals that did endorse a candidate gave their support to the President." Now for another flip-flop: from then until now, such mainline Protestants have backed away from endorsement and, certainly, from "denominational" involvement. Were there endorsements of either party among any of them in the current campaign? Mainline action today is mainly in local spheres and does not consist in national partisan endorsements.
Fourth, black churches: African-American issues received much treatment in 1964/65, but Martin Marty was too dumb to sight activity among black churches back then. Here there has been the most continuity: the civil rights movement was being organized by, and the Great Society legislation was receiving open and explicit support among, African-American churches. Today's social issues still receive such support from this faction, and candidates trek to these churches.
Fifth, Jewish groups: The 1965 World Book Yearbook article on Jews did not connect them with the campaign story, but Jews went overwhelmingly for Johnson. Nearly 80 percent voted Democratic in 2000. Now some pundits are predicting a decline in Arab-American support for Republicans and Jewish support for Democrats.
Of most "flip-flop" interest on the Jewish front is the coalition between some "evangelicals," often with apocalyptic Christian Zionist and pro-Israel views, and many Jews. In the mid-sixties, sociologists were still associating "orthodox Protestantism" with "anti-Semitism," though liberal Protestants were more often "anti-Zionist." Today, Republicans are counting on conservative evangelicals to boost Jewish votes for Republicans. And the same evangelicals who, forty years ago, often spoke of the Pope as the Anti-Christ are now in coalition with the Pope and with Catholics.
What would a Rip Van Winkle who retired in 1964 make of the altered religious-political landscape of 2004? He'd probably flip.
----------
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Dear all,
This has to be my last guest-post. But I'd like to say, first, that I find the
tone taken by Russ Hittinger to be much more productive of discussion than the
rhetoric of Greg Sisk. But here goes:
1. I believe I said that I recognized the intersection of assessment of a
candidate's character and assessment of issues is intertwined. I grant that
Catholics have assessed character in terms of the candidate's stand on
abortion--but it seems almost exclusively in terms of a candidate's stand on
abortion--as Greg's response does almost exclusively. What I was pointing to
was the failure to address broader questions of character in terms of
possession of the political virtues, such as prudentia, and its subvirtues. I
frankly don't see how this wasn't apparent from reading my response, and its
invocation of Aquinas's Treatise on Prudence and Justice.
2. I agree Kerry's stand on abortion is extreme. But despite the difference
in Democratic and Republican platform positions on abortion, I don't think it
will make much difference in the legal structure anytime soon. As I think I
said, I don't believe that there is any chance that the Supreme Court will be
so constituted as to overrule Roe anytime soon. I think the only confirmable
people will be like O'Connor and Kennedy--both Republican nominees, and both
unwilling to overrule Roe. I think that on balance, in the reall world, a
Democratic administration is likely to result in fewer abortions.
3. I'm just not an apologist for Kerry as Greg Sisk describes me--I certainly
don't think my position --described as "holding my nose and voting for Kerry"
counts as apologetics.
4. I have to say that I'm a bit discouraged with this conversation--I thought
my post provided a) a moral analysis of the act of voting; b) a set of criteria
according to which candidates could be assessed, which partly drew upon the
Catholic tradition in virtue theory, as applied to the virtue of politics; c) a
way of morally accounting for a vote that will further, unintentionally but
foreseeably, unjust policies rooted in Catholic casuistry (i.e., the concept of
cooperaton), d) a defense of why I thought I had proportionate reason to vote
for Kerry here, given my beliefs about Bush and my background belief that I
have a moral obligation to vote; and e) a few reflections on the puzzling
question of what solidarity consists in. Greg didn't engage any of that. And
as I read his well, screed, it simply says to me, "YOU IDIOT DON'T YOU SEE THAT
KERRY IS EVIL EVIL EVIL ?"
So , honestly, I just don't see this conversation as having any future point.
I'm happy to talk with Russ off-line (on the meaning of solidarity), but I
guess I'll exit this discussion where I began: worrying about the state of
the rhetoric in the Church.
Best wishes,
Cathy Kaveny
Dear Cathy:
I meant by solidarity (as you correctly perceived) making the plight of
those excluded from the protection of law something “first” in one’s
public actions. I spoke of actions, not just symbols. I cannot
quarrel with your suggestion that “solidarity” with an excluded class
of human persons can be maintained at levels besides acts of voting,
legislating, and creating public laws and policies. Indeed, we have to
do this all of time, even with regard to persons who are not, strictly
speaking, excluded from the protections of law. Decent people reorder
their priorities and resources to succor needy neighbors, and they do
so without waiting for the state to act or even to recognize the
problem. Sometimes, these private acts of justice and social charity
turn out to be more efficacious than what can be furnished by law. But
I was trying to throw light on the public dimension, consisting of the
choices we make as citizens (by voting, legislating, etc.) – choices
that have a distinct kind of causality. At this level, the moral
question is not merely how to deploy forces to fix a problem, but
whether those who suffer the injustice have a claim upon the public
sphere. For me, this is not an abstract issue, although, to be sure,
it is tricky.
You and I agree that unborn human persons have a legitimate claim on us
at other levels. I am insisting that the deadly sin of the political
order is not merely its contingent inability or slowness in correcting
an injustice, but rather the use of law to rule out the claim of the
victims, to deny it access to public consideration and remedy, and to
cast the class of unprotected human persons into a status of being
merely private neighbors. Now, it could happen that once these persons
are thrown beyond the pale of law their lives will turn out okay. I am
dubious. Given all of the other things that warrant your dubiety (the
practical wisdom of the candidates, the war policies of the Bush
administration, the belligerent rationalism that overestimates what is
amenable to legal and political remedy), you should at least be dubious
about the prospect of justice when the equal protection principle is
set aside. I was disappointed that your Augustinian sensibilities,
which I share, seem to evaporate once we get to the problem of the
powerful consigning the weak to the contingencies of cultural
persuasion. On my view, this sounds too much like free-marketeers who
find every solution to distributive and legal justice in the
spontaneous hand of the market.
I contend that one ought not to vote for a candidate who, as a matter
of principle, would create or maintain the exclusion of unborn persons
from the protection of law; indeed who would go further, by using the
powers of his or her office not only to prevent a constitutional
solution, but to knock down ordinary legislation protecting some unborn
human persons. The net result of Kerry’s position is that there can be
no public prudence about this issue. It is the severity and totality
of the principle that alert us to the fact that we are not dealing with
tough issues of prudence. Rather, we are dealing with a canceling-out
of the principle that makes prudence possible, at least in this
particular case. I agree that there are other issues of justice that
demand our attention, including the torture and abuse of prisoners,
derogation from the international law of war, the poverty of families,
just for starters. The point that I am making is that these kinds of
injustice are not excluded from the common law of our society. Each
one can be addressed and remedied on the basis our corporate moral and
legal order. We might disagree about the facts, but no one believes
that we are not entitled to deliver judgment in these matters that
binds everyone.
Perhaps you and I are considering two very different examples of how a
problem of justice gets opened-up or closed-off. You are worried about
the long-range pattern of social legislation, which, if prudently
framed and pursued would tend to ameliorate the situation of the weak
and vulnerable. As you can see, I have emphasized the use of the most
public of things, equal rights under law, to insure that rightful
claims can be heard and that public business can be conducted on the
matter. Anyone who holds the latter should hold the former.
International instruments and covenants of human rights hold both
principles. They belong together. In moral logic there is an order of
priority between the two. I won’t insist on this entailment right
here, because I am willing to admit that in working for certain good
consequences one can find himself implicitly affirming the suppressed
principle.
Yet, I keep waiting to hear from the party of long-term amelioration
some recognition (let it be highly coded, and let it be a velleity
aimed at the future) that the well-being of unborn persons is truly a
matter of public business – just for who they are, and not merely as
potential, if not anonymous, beneficiaries of social policy designed
for other people. After all, what it means to be in a community of
justice is not just bringing about good external consequences, but also
affirming the good of the persons to whom these other things accrue.
So, I look for the party of amelioration to make a more generous
gesture in the direction of the personal good of the unborn and their
equality before the law, and to show that the social policies are not
reinforcing the position that one class of human persons are only
incidentally factored into the justice of the city. Once the principle
is admitted, then we can debate time-tables and the plethora of issues
that legitimately fall to the order of prudence.
Concerning all of the other issues you raise about Bush versus Kerry, I
think you are right about some and not so right about others. But I am
not entirely sure.
Your friend,
Russ H.
