Stem Cells: Teaching the Ethical

IssuesPluripotent Cells in a Pluralistic

Democracy

Ask yourself: What is a right act and what makes it so?

A question in bioethics : is research on human stem cells is a right act and what makes it so?

Background-- Ethical problems in:

Origins of cells moral status issues Process and means human subject issues Telos/ends social impact issues

Start with agreements in a contentious time! We are at a crossroads in world history Science research is like free speech But some limits or guidelines are needed. Science is

always witnessed speech Be careful—attend to safety concerns Be good—do not take bribes Do no harm—don’t deceive or hurt Tell the truth Try not to make errors

.

Controversial because History haunts research

Ethics of memory—our duty to remember science misdeeds

Informed consent is what stands against the power science and the state

Codes , norms and regulation protect science

Controversial because it touches on essential human concerns Blood Sex Animals Power Fate

This is what is meant by “playing God’

Controversial because issues also engage Religious Thought

Conception Suffering Healing Death Resurrection

A special American Challenge:Moral Status We will not agree, for this is a religious

question with significant differences and a history of dissent

We will not agree, for Americans historically disagree about moral status issues

Pragmatism evolved from failure to find a coherent ideology (no null position)

Moral status and other liminalities What is a slave? What is an immigrant? What is a woman? What is a dying person? What is a minimally conscious person?

Medicine always challenges and reframes suffering Anesthesia introduced to controversy Vaccines introduced to controversy

We really differ on some things Arguments against stem cell research

1. To destroy an embryo is murder Once the sperm and egg meet and form a

new DNA, the entire self has a blueprint and a plan. Our bodies begin at the moment that our DNA is assembled.

2. Dignity toward the most vulnerable Our dignity requires this intactness is

identity. This moral status means that most of all, destroying human embryos is always wrong, but also that any deliberate approach to the DNA of any creature is wrong as well.

Touching or changing the DNA alters the essence of being and creation itself

3. Nature is fixed. Nature—human nature and the nature of

the green and living world—is fixed, for it has borders that cannot be broached without violation.

Species boundaries are particularly important to keep intact.

4. Nature is normative Nature is normative, (meaning it suggests rules and

laws) and morally good, if left free It will express itself in a primal harmony that our

use, and our machines, threatens. There is an order to nature that is inherently wise

and self-correcting Gaia theory, Natural Law

5.Suffering is the main thing that defines our species

Suffering and its noble acceptance is the great teacher of our need and of our love. Without suffering, we would become soulless.

6. Slopes are slippery Very slippery—if we begin to create or use

a technology, there will be no way to stop it from being used for ever larger and progressively more trivial or common purposes.

7. Dual Use is Inevitable Evil people will turn what you make for

good—even great good—into bad uses. Such technology will give unprecedented

power which could enslave us. The history of our species included

genocidal actions.

8. Mistakes are inevitable

Mongoose in Hawaii, Sparrows in North America, etc.

9. Playing God

New technologies are really an effort to live forever

Death defines us, and this technology is intended to—and might—lead to immortality.

10. You cannot trust scientists They lie (Korea) They engage is false advertising (cold

fusion) They exaggerate In every science fiction story, they are

rather crazy

11.The Marketplace will distort science The mix of marketplace and science is troubling The very success implied -widespread applications

—should alert us.Even good scientists will be tempted by profits promised by Big Pharma.

Conflicts of interest will alter the integrity of science

12. An Unfair World How will the goods created be distributed? We should only be working on social

solutions not hi-tech ones Classes of haves and have-nots will

worsen.

What can be said about these challenges?

3 things we know are true

1. All of these claims have some real validity First, all of them are more than trivially correct, and

any sensible person could agree with many of these statements.

Trouble begins here is their extremity when taken to their logical conclusion. (yes, slopes are slippery, but they are not impossibly slippery, just to give one example)

3. All of these claims are faith based

All of these are profoundly religious statements.

They are statements of faith, world view and eschatology, not of moral arguments.

As such, they will not—cannot—be entirely agreed upon in a pluralistic democracy.

Like many faith claims in our world, they are eschatological in nature

2. These claims create new political alliances

Second, not every one makes every claim; some emerge politically from the left, some from the right.

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Center for Bioethics, Science and

Society

Argument I: UtilitarianThat the more we learn about this

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Center for Bioethics, Science and

Society

The better able we are to relieve human suffering

Argument II: We Have Duties

As in Kantian Moral Imperatives

As in Religious Commands

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Center for Bioethics, Science and

Society

The ethical question of stem cell research also is a deontological question

If I have a duty to heal the suffering other,

Is it warranted to block the moral action of

healing to avoid the destruction of a blastocyst?

They are long standing differences When does human life begin?

Aristotle: when menstrual blood congeals -40 days

Judaism—40 d, quickening, showing, birth Islam-when bones knit., 120 days Buddhist—life like a flame Hindu—developmental Christian traditions until 1859- 40 days

. Which is most natural?

III. Which is most natural?

Major Ethical ProblemMoralstatus

Duty toHeal

Make to destroy

Tx of donors

nature $$$ justice Hypemistakes

FreeInquiry

Secular x x x

Judaism

x x x x

Islam x x x

Buddhist

x

Hindu x x

Lib Prot x x x x

Fem/Sp x x x x x

Ev Prot x x

R Cath x x x x x

Moral StatusUn-EnableDeNovo

Like anyOther

Other Faiths

SpecEntity

Has InherenDignity

Worthy OfRespec

Not For $

Nogenealter

HumLife

Very Smallperson

Most VulnerAmongus

Secular x x

Judaism

x

Islam x

Buddh x x x

Hindu x x x

Lib Prot x x x x x

Fem/Sp x x

Ev Prot x x

R Cath x x x

JustificationExpandHuman Know

For otheruses

For Enhance

HealViaMedRes.

HealWhen proven

HealSeveredisease

Tosavelife

OtherWiseFatalInfant

UnderNo circ

Really!notEvenIVF

Secular

x x

Judaism

x

Islam x

Buddh x x x

Hindu x x x

Lib Prot

x x x x x

Fem/Sp

x x

Ev Prot x x

R Cath x x x

What is the right act, what makes it so? Some ways to figure it out? Utility—how it will turn out?

Virtues—what it makes of us as a society?

Duties –what have we promised to do?

Healing defines Humanity The teacher/ philosopher Emmanuel

Levinas gives an idea: Our duty to one another is the constant

subject of a good life—in teaching, medical research or science.

End with agreements in a contentious time! We are at a crossroads in world history Science research is like free speech But some limits or guidelines are needed. Science is

always witnessed speech Be careful—attend to safety concerns Be good—do not take bribes Do no harm—don’t deceive or hurt Tell the truth Try not to make errors

.

But don’t forget disagreements are important! Remember Socrates! Justice as foundational—Fair play, good

rules, foul lines Observation of everything—test and watch Public funding means public debate and

oversight And TEACHING happens in the middle of

the public square

Thanks to: Northwestern University: John Kessler, Douglas Losordo,

Holly Falk-Krzesinski, Dean Grosshandler, Latonia Trimuel Leroy Walters, Baruch Brody, Jon Moreno Al Jonson, Karen Lebacqz, Mike Mendiola, Ernle Young, Ted

Peters Suzanne Holland, Dena Davis, John Lantos, Shimon Glick,

Noam Zohar, Robert Gibbs, Elliott Dorff, Roger Pederson, Ron McKay, Doug Melton, Len Zon, David

Anderson, Larry Goldstein, Irv Weisman, John Gearhart, Tom Okarma, Seth Morrison, Stephen, Desidario, Brigid Hogan

Emmanuel Levinas