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     The last hundred years have seen remarkable advances in our ability to improve the length and quality of life for all humans, especially those living in industrialized societies. The three leading causes of death for Americans in 1900 were pneumonia/influenza, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Now the CDC’s mortality list is dominated by heart disease (#1), stroke (#3), lung disease (#4), diabetes (#7), kidney disease (#9), and liver disease (#10). In each case, meaningful lives are cut short because a set of cells stops providing metabolic service to the rest of the organism.
     Imagine the benefit to all of us if we could replace damaged cells and repair malfunctioning organs. Organ transplants have represented a significant step forward, but too few people offer their organs for transplant — and of those who do, too many come from older donors whose organs have already run the majority of their useful lives. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, offer the possibility of producing any kind of differentiated cells, be it heart, liver, or kidney. These seeds of health are capable of restoring the normal function of aging and diseased organs.
     There are thousands of different cell lineages found in the human body, but only 60 cell lines are authorized for study under the federal guidelines. The defining feature of stem cells is their ability to change into other cells, to differentiate into liver cells or heart cells. However, these sparks of life are themselves partially differentiated and only capable of becoming a small sub-set of the total possible cell types. Only embryonic stem cells are totipotent, capable of becoming whatever kind of cell we need to preserve our lives. By limiting research, we limit the kinds of cells we can produce and the number of people we can help.
     It may seem undignified or hyper technological to imagine our bodies as machines with replaceable parts, but most of us would choose an occasional trip to the “body shop” rather than face a premature end in the junkyard. But with the current federal policy, it is as if our auto parts store is being stocked with only a few kinds of parts. We carry headlamps and radiators, but the government prohibits us from carrying batteries, spark plugs, or alternators.
     Federal policy should not encourage a premature death for grandma in order to protect the sanctity of the “potential for life” found in a frozen embryo. The preservation and perpetuation of human life is almost universally accepted as a moral imperative. Thus the moral thing to do in this case is broaden embryonic stem cell research, lest future gener-ations view this time as “the bad old days” when people died for the simple lack of healthy organs.

Dr. Hampton, professor of biology, has been a faculty member at BVU since 1994.

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     Let’s begin with a principle we can all agree on: Government funding should not be used for immoral purposes.
     So is it immoral to use stem cells derived from human embryos in even the best sort of life-saving research? It is, if you make it your moral rule that human beings — even in the most basic form — should not be treated as nothing more than raw biological material.
      In other words, we don’t treat human beings (or even potential human beings) like things. Human life is unique, morally valuable life, and should be treated as such. And the ends, no matter how terrific they are, can never justify the use of immoral means.
      Using human embryonic cells, even in potentially life-saving research, amounts to treating some (even if rudimentary) forms of human life as mere things in order to help other forms of human life. The moral end of helping some human beings does not justify the immoral treatment of other human beings. Therefore, the government shouldn’t be funding research that generates and uses new embryonic material.
      Of course, the other side is likely to offer some objections:
      “How can you possibly claim that some little bunch of cells is a person?”
      Who said anything about a bunch of cells being a person? Human embryos are constituted so as to turn out to be human beings, not chimps, houseflies, or philodendrons. So they must have whatever it is that makes humans unique, regardless of how rudimentary the form, or they wouldn’t turn out to be humans in their later developmental stages. This quality is what makes humans morally valuable (a soul, the capacity to become a rational being, whatever), and that makes human embryos subject to the no-treating-humans-as-things rule.
      “Isn’t using stem cells of any kind from existing lines a violation of your rule?”
      Perhaps, but this policy is a compromise. We can’t undo what’s already done, and we can still get the life-saving results we want from research using existing materials. We just don’t see the need to add insult to injury by generating and using new embryonic material.
      “But embryonic stem cells work better than any other kind! Aren’t you needlessly preventing researchers from getting the best results?”
      No, we simply refuse to make morality second to scientific expedience. Scientists can still do their research, and they should regard this restriction as a challenge to find morally acceptable ways to do it, rather than as an unreasonable impediment.

Dr. Bernhardt, assistant professor of philosophy and religion, has been a faculty member at BVU since 2002.

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