President Obama will sign an executive order today (March 9) rescinding the Bush administration limitations on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Scientists, advocates and members of Congress have been invited to public ceremony at the White house to witness this important and historic decision. At the ceremony, Obama is expecting to announce “a broader effort to restore scientific integrity.” Hopefully, this will signal the end of the Bush era’s reliance on junk science in setting policy when science and religion appear to conflict.
I hope the White House has invited some of the many religious leaders who have spoken out in support of embryonic stem cell research. We have heard incessantly from religious leaders who are opposed to research on embryonic stem cells and it is now time for us to hear from the proponents. This will be especially important as NIH develops the guidelines for federal funding as active denominational opposition has been vigorous and well-funded. It is however limited to a few faith groups: Roman Catholicism, the National Association of Evangelicals, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the Southern Baptist Convention. The Episcopal Church, United Methodists, all major branches of Judaism, United Church of Christ, UU, and the Presbyterian Church have all adopted positions in favor of using early embryos to create stem cells for medical and therapeutic research so long as embryos are not created specifically for this purpose. Most advocate the use of embryos created for assisted reproduction and scheduled to be destroyed anyway.
Sadly, most faith groups have not yet taken a position on the issue. The National Council of Churches Human Biotechnologies Policy Development Committee, in its usual non-prophetic posture, declined to set policy. They said: “as a result of a lack of clear consensus [among ethicists, academia, and scientists] the National Council of Churches neither endorse nor condemns experimentation on human embryos.” In varying degrees, their no-position position is shared by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Why sadly? Because the next year will be marked by vigorous debate regarding the circumstances under which federal funds will be granted. You can bet your bottom dollar that those religious groups totally opposed to embryonic stem research will be advocating for restrictive guidelines and mobilizing their members to advocate against such research.
Bad theological arguments about human life will abound and bad science will be brought to bear and careful ethical distinctions are unlikely to be made. Embryonic stem cell research which involves the use of specific cells taken from three- to five-day-old early embryos does result in the destruction of those embryos. For most of the world’s religions the question of the moral status of the human embryo is a matter of lively inquiry. However, as Jonathan Moreno, one of the leading advocates of embryonic stem cell research and a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, notes that “not all of the Abrahamic religions universally agree with the notion that a human embryo has any moral status at all. Orthodox Jews, imams in the Islamic tradition and many Protestant denominations do not equate the embryo with the moral status of the human person.”
For many in the religious community the moral status of the early embryo is of far less weight than the possible good for saving lives that the use of embryonic stem cells promises. This is the conclusion pro-life on abortion Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) reached when he became the leading advocate of this research in the Senate and incurred the wrath of anti-stem cell religionists.
A positive result of the President’s decision to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research will be greater government oversight of the research; ethical guidelines will be developed. Will we permit embryos to be created exclusively for their stem cells? Will we only use embryos that are to be discarded in assisted reproduction? What about embryos from aborted fetuses? Who will be paid and for what? Progressive religionists—ethicists, theologians, clergy and political advocates have much to offer in this debate. No position is not an alternative.
