Human welfare does not demand that scientists pursue every avenue available. On the contrary, it depends upon a shared responsibility that involves moral limits.

Science has confirmed with objective certainty that full human life begins at conception with the formation of a genetically complete, self-directing human entity, the embryo. Life does not result from an organism when it has been built up, but rather it is the vital principle of life that builds up the organism of its own body. This was established over 120 years ago by Wilhelm His, the father of human embryology.

The main objection then to current methods of embryonic stern-cell research is that they involve the destruction of living human embryos, that is, human beings at the embryonic stage in their lives. This is a principled objection to the direct and intentional killing of human beings.

Amazingly, though embryonic stem cell experiments have failed to produce a single, unqualified, therapeutic success, even in animal models, supporters of the embryonic model continue to laud their unproven and currently unethical methods and ignore the fact that adult stem cell therapies are being used extensively today in treating over seventy diseases.

To divert tax payers’ funds away from these promising avenues for research and treatment toward the avenue that is most morally controversial as well as most medically speculative would be a sad victory of politics over morality and science.

The justification for embryonic stem cell research was always based on the arguments that such cells were “pluripotent”. Pluripotent stem cells are those miraculous building block cells that can be coaxed into becoming any type of tissue found in the human body. However, a major breakthrough in November of 2007 showed that pluripotent stem cells (embryo-like stem cells) can ethically be derived from human skin cells, by “reprogramming” them with special genes. This renders obsolete any and all research on human embryos which is, in reality, the direct and intentional killing of human beings.

The smart plan would be to encourage the myriad of available alternatives, rather than funding the most unethical type of research that relies on a form of discrimination against an entire class of humans – embryonic humans – being singled out for targeted destruction at the hands of researchers.

Human beings are not raw materials that can be exploited or commodities that can be bought and sold. If a man takes on the power to fabricate man, he also takes on the power to destroy him.

The respect for every human life is an essential condition if a societal life worthy of the name is to be possible. When man’s conscience loses respect for life as something sacred, he inevitably ends by losing his own identity.

We must help those who are suffering, but we may not use a good end to justify an evil means. All government’s have a moral obligation to protect human life in all phases of its existence from conception to natural death.

Paul Kokoski

Hamilton, Ontario

Canada