A victory for human dignity
National Post
Fri 23 Nov 2007
Page: A16
Section: Editorial
Column: Michael Gerson
Source: Washington Post Writers Group

Shinya Yamanaka and James Thomson are two scientists who may this week have joined a short historical list that includes Gregor Mendel and Madame Curie.

Their breakthrough is stunning: four genes introduced into normal skin cells, enticing them to act like embryonic stem cells, which can be transformed into the 220 cell types of the human body. Somehow a piece of skin, after a few weeks of lab work, can become the cell of a beating heart.

The technology must be perfected; the cells may not prove to be exactly like embryonic stem cells; and the possibility of repairing hearts or spinal chords is still a long way off.

But the reaction of the scientific community has been close to giddy, and for good reasons. The technique, unlike cloning, is relatively easy and inexpensive. Because the skin tissue will come from the recipient himself, the transformed cells would not be rejected by the body. And the source of these cells, as one researcher said, is "ethically uncomplicated."

This is wonderful news for humanity -- and vindication for U.S. President George W. Bush. In 2001, he slowed the rush toward public funding of research involving the destruction of human embryos. Instead, he directed millions of dollars toward alternative methods of obtaining stem cells, hoping science would eventually find a way around the problem. And it has.

Advocates of embryonic stem cell research accused Bush of conducting a "war on science." Ron Reagan Jr., speaking at the 2004 Democratic National WASHINGTON -Convention, conceded that some opponents of embryonic stem cell research were "well-meaning and sincere." "Their belief is just that," he continued, "an article of faith, and they are entitled to it. But it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many."

This often has been the argument: that "science" -- defined as technology without limits -- must triumph over "theology." But this isn't really an argument for science or reason. It is an argument for the philosophy of utilitarianism -- a belief that the well-being of the many trumps the rights of a few. In other words, the ends -- if they are noble enough --justify the means.

Standing in opposition to utilitarianism is a different philosophy -- that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. This belief in human dignity has theological roots for some -- but it is no less reasonable than the philosophic alternatives. And this commitment has informed medical ethics in the past. In 1964, the World Medical Association declared: "In medical research on human subjects, considerations related to the wellbeing of the human subject should take precedence over the interests of science and society."

The human subject, in the case of embryonic research, is unrecognizable. But it is genetically distinct from other lives, and undeniably human -- a human at its earliest stage of development. It is not a superstition of the Dark Ages to believe that it should be valued, instead of discarded like cracked pottery.

In some quarters, advances such as this week's breakthrough will not be well received. A number of companies have a financial investment in embryonic research and saw their stocks decline on the news. Others have an emotional investment in embryonic research because of a conviction that humanity should have unrestricted technological control over its reproductive and genetic future.

But it was C.S. Lewis who said that "Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument . Each new power won by man is a power over man as well."

This week, science demonstrated an even greater power -- the power of morally responsible technology to serve the cause of human dignity instead of undermining it.