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Hollywood's Catholic heavyweights do battle over cloning & killing human embryos for research Robert J. Hutchinson Like many revolutions, the campaign to usher in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" was carried out largely in stealth. With more than a dozen complex initiatives on the ballot November 2, few Californians paid sufficient attention to Proposition 71 — a ballot measure that will put the already bankrupt state a further $6 billion in debt to fund embryonic stem cell research. Supporters for the measure — including Hollywood celebrities such as the late Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox as well as Nancy Reagan (wife of the late president Ronald Reagan) — downplayed the fact that the ballot measure authorizes deliberate cloning of human embryos for research. The official voter's guide from the California attorney general's office consistently referred to merely "stem cell" research, and not "embryonic stem cell" research. Proponents also denied, falsely, that the law would authorize cloning and instead used such euphemisms as "somatic cell nuclear transfer" to describe the procedure. As a result of these subterfuges and a compliant media, supporters successfully positioned the measure as merely funding basic scientific research to cure diseases — not the most sweeping, radical and extreme authorization for human cloning and experiments on human embryos to appear in the Western world. The voices in opposition were either non-existent or barely heard. Although the California bishops issued a formal statement against the measure in April, and Cardinal Roger Mahony issued a brief statement against it on the Friday before the election, most Catholics in the pews heard nothing about the controversial measure. Like many dioceses throughout California, the diocese of San Bernardino banned the distribution in parishes of "voter guides" critical of embryonic stem cell research. These guides — such as those produced by Our Sunday Visitor or Catholic Answers of San Diego — quoted papal and other magisterial teaching on the grave evils of abortion, euthanasia, medical experiments on embryos and homosexual marriage. The proposition was given a major boost three weeks before the election by an endorsement from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Catholic, who says he is a strong proponent of embryo stem cell research. Due to the state's precarious financial position, there had been hope among those opposed to Proposition 71 that Schwarzenegger's fiscal conservatism would lead him to oppose the measure. One week before the election, actor Mel Gibson taped a powerful TV ad that denounced the measure as a "money grab" by the big biotech companies, which provided tens of millions of dollars to the "Yes on 71" campaign. "If cloning human embryos for destruction is so promising, why aren't private companies paying the $6 billion?" Gibson asked in the ad. "Because in 23 years embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single human cure. All it yielded is tumors, rejections and mutations." Gibson wondered privately to Inside the Vatican why the Catholic Church was silent in the face of such a direct assault on human life, and he seemed reluctant to have to step into another bruising cultural battle so soon after The Passion of The Christ. Still, he did it. But it was too little, too late. Proposition 71 passed by a comfortable margin, 59.1 % in favor and 40.9% opposed. In the Bay Area around San Francisco, the ballot measure passed by 70% in some counties. In more rural and suburban areas of California, it was either opposed or barely passed. According to the official statement by the California attorney general's office. Proposition 71: "Battle of the Stars"Thus, the proposition to fund embryonic stem cell research turned into "the battle of the Hollywood stars," as the Associated Press put it in an October 28 report. On October 28, Gibson appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and said he had an "ethical problem" with the proposition. Gibson told "Good Morning America" he had called Governor Schwarzenegger on October 27 to talk about the issue — but the governor told him he had to make a speech and would call back. "Well, Arnold, I'm still waiting for your call," Gibson said. Later, Schwarzenegger appeared puzzled. "I don't know what this was all about," the governor told AP in Los Angeles. "I did talk to him for several minutes and explained to him what my position was" on the stem-cell proposal, the governor said. Schwarzenegger said he had to cut short the call because he had to give a speech in San Diego. "After that, I called back at 9 o'clock and left a message on his phone," Schwarzenegger said. "He hasn't returned my call." Both Gibson and Schwarzenegger are Roman Catholics, which makes their differences on the morality of human embryo experimentation of great interest to Inside the Vatican. Gibson said he opposed the cloning of human embryos but would support the use of adult stem cells. "I found that the cloning of human embryos will be used in the process and that, for me, I have an ethical problem with that," he said. "Why do I, as a taxpayer, have to fund something I believe is unethical?" Another Hollywood star, Brad Pitt, said he supported the measure. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," the actor said. "Proposition 71 accomplishes this." But Pitt, like so many, seems unaware of the scientific facts. Senator Sam Brownback (Republican from Kansas and a convert to Catholicism through conversations with the charismatic Father John McCloskey, director of an Opus Dei information center in Washington, D.C.), is the leading proponent of a ban on human cloning in the US Senate. On July 27, he made these points in a news release: "To date, 45 diseases and medical conditions have been treated with adult stem cells, while there is not one successful treatment or trial for humans using embryonic stem cells. Everyone supports stem cell research and I fully support adult and non-embryonic stem cell research, which is currently providing the cures that proponents of human cloning can only hope to provide. "However," Brownback continued, "human cloning... is both immoral and almost universally opposed. It is wrong to create human life just to destroy it; yet that is exactly what is being proposed by those who support human cloning for research purposes." In Germany this summer, as LifeSiteNews.com reported on July 9, researchers have found that adult stem cells — not cells from embryos — are an effective treatment for patients who have had heart attacks. Researchers at the University of Freiberg treated 60 patients either with stem cells taken from their own bone marrow, or with the best conventional treatment. After six months the hearts of those who received the stem cell treatments were working far better. The stem cells used were taken from each patient's own bone marrow and injected into their heart muscle. The researchers believe that the adult stem cells turned into blood vessel or heart muscles. Because the cells came from the patient's own body, the transplant was not rejected. One of the physicians involved in such research has stated that four of his five patients "had such a marked improvement in blood supply after stem-cell treatment that they were removed from the list of those needing a heart transplant." Another scientist claimed that "this is the first approach where you have an opportunity to actually heal a heart." A study just published in Nature Medicine provides additional confirmation that adult bone marrow stem cells — not embryo stem cells — can work wonders on damaged or diseased hearts. The researchers utilized stem cells from the bone marrow of rats and genetically modified the cells to survive longer than usual. They injected the cells into the hearts of rats that had had heart attacks and found that the adult bone marrow stem cells restored 80 to 90 percent of the hearts' volume, and completely normalized the contracting functions of the hearts. At the same time, research using stem cells extracted from fetal tissue — embryos — has been largely unsuccessful, even damaging to patients. A study just released in the scientific journal Annals of Neurology reports that recent experiments in treating Parkinson's disease by using brain cells taken from aborted fetuses have failed. After the fetal cells were injected into the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease, 56% of the patients developed unanticipated dyskinesia, a condition involving potentially-disabling repetitive movements. In three of the patients, the dyskinesia was "disabling, necessitating a surgical intervention when the study was completed." The authors of the study concluded that they could not recommend fetal brain cell transplantation as a therapy for Parkinson's disease at this time, though they called for continued experimentation using cells derived from aborted fetuses. These results mirror the results of a March 2001 study from the New England Journal of Medicine. In that study, cells from human embryos and fetuses were injected into the brains of Parkinson's patients. A number of the patients later experienced severe uncontrollable movements, like jerking of their heads and swinging or writhing of their arms. SILENCING THE CHURCHOne factor in the success of Proposition 71 was the deliberate campaign to keep information critical of the measure out of the hands of ordinary Catholics in the pews. This was accomplished by having diocesan attorneys (some active Democrats) insist that any information critical of stem cell research specifically — widely supported by Democratic candidates, including Sen. John Kerry — would not pass government regulations regarding political activity by churches. This was true even though numerous legal authorities had insisted that the most popular voter guide — published by Catholic Answers of California — merely discussed the Church's teaching on various controversial moral issues (such as abortion) and did not name any candidates or political parties. For example, on October 6 Jeanette Arnquist, director of the Office of Social Concerns for the San Bernardino diocese, issued a memo saying that Catholic voters' guides — such as those published by Our Sunday Visitor or the organization Catholic Answers in San Diego — are "not to be distributed from the parish." She instructed parishes to use only material from "Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility." Produced by the lay staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Faithful Citizenship" has been widely criticized for placing issues such as abortion, embryo research and euthanasia on the same plane as "global solidarity," "debt reform" and other issues. San Bernardino was following a similar ruling by the diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, a state that John Kerry narrowly won. On August 20, the attorney for the diocese, James Birnbaum, wrote a letter to pastors in that state insisting that Catholic churches could not pass out such voters' guides because they were "too narrow to pass legal muster" and would violate tax laws. It was later reported that Birnbaum, a lector at the diocese's cathedral and diocesan legal counsel for 25 years, personally donated thousands of dollars to various pro-abortion Democrat Party candidates from 1997 until June 2004. According to Catholic World News, Birnbaum donated $6,500 to Rep. Ronald Kind, who received a 100% voting record from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Although Birnbaum later recused himself on any legal matters regarding the Church's tax status, he remained defiant: "I am a lifelong Democrat and continue to be," Birnbaum told the La Crosse Tribune. "I neither apologize for, nor seek their approval of, my political affiliations. I am a Democrat for many moral reasons. It is political demagoguery to suggest that support of a political candidate makes one pro-abortion." Birnbaum also claimed to be insulted that anyone could see a conflict of interest between his support of pro-abortion politicians and his insistence that voter guides critical of abortion could not be passed out at Catholic parishes. —Robert Hutchinson Will we “grow” children for “Spare Parts”?The most disturbing aspect to the current drive to clone and destroy embryos for stem cell research is that there is no proof that anything positive will ever come of it. During the U.S. presidential campaign, Sen. John Kerry and especially his running mate. Sen. John Edwards, made elaborate claims for embryonic stem cell research -including Edwards' widely-derided claim that, had Kerry been president, the late actor Christopher Reeve would have been able to walk due to embryonic stem cell research. Even scientists who support such research were aghast at the abject pandering of such claims. Most insisted that any practical application of embryonic stem cell research was decades away, at best. And as opponents of the research consistently point out, the only research that has yielded any practical benefits so far has involved adult stem cells, such as those taken from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. Skeptics point to the equally spectacular claims made in the past for so-called "fetal tissue research," and, even more so, to "gene therapy." "When it [gene therapy] was first proposed, it was going to be the way to fix everything," said Josephine Johnston, a bioethicist at the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York. In the early 1990s, advocates for manipulating human genes to cure disease insisted that breakthrough treatments would come by the end of the millennium. Not only would most diseases be eradicated, but the reprogramming of human genes would significantly prolong the human lifespan. To date, no significant treatment modalities have surfaced - and, after several patients have died, the research is proceeding slowly. Because the US has no restrictions whatsoever on what scientists may do to human embryos or even to developing children in the womb, prolife advocates believe that embryonic stem cell research is opening a Pandora's Box out of which will come horrors even Aldous Huxley could not imagine - such as "organ farms" in which human children are incubated for "spare parts." Under current US law, there is nothing preventing privately-funded researchers from growing human embryos far beyond the common 14-day mark, when most are now killed and then destroyed. While technically impossible at the moment, research could theoretically allow an embryo to grow into a developing fetus to harvest organs. In a time when there are nowhere near enough donated organs for transplants, wealthy individuals could well pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to private researchers for organs that would save their lives. And as prolifers grimly point out, a society such as the US, which tolerates the gruesome practice of partial birth abortion - in which a third-trimester infant has its brains suctioned out of its skull while it's still alive - would hardly blanch at such "life-saving" measures. The US secular bioethics establishment - headed by people like Peter Singer of Princeton University (who advocates infanticide for deformed children) and Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania (a prominent supporter of embryo research) - would eventually not find organ harvesting to be in the least problematic, once it was proven that such practices could actually work. A utilitarian ethic that insists that the ends do indeed justify the means, and that human beings do not possess any natural rights, could easily justify the growing and harvesting of unborn children for spare parts - especially given that it finds nothing wrong with deliberately killing unborn children in the second or third trimester. These "bioethicists" will make the same argument for organ harvesting that they now do for embryonic stem cell research: that, in the case of embryos taken from fertility clinics, these human beings would be destroyed anyway... and why should such life-saving "tissues" be "wasted"? Already in China, government authorities permit the harvesting of organs from living prisoners condemned to death - removing hearts, kidneys and livers for sale on the open market. Once the technology of growing human children outside the womb progresses, it will not be long, critics say, when countries such as China permit the wholesale manufacturing and harvesting of spare parts. And unlike Europe, where many countries have strict regulation of medical research on living embryos, the US has no regulation whatsoever on such practices. Already in Proposition 71, the California ballot measure authorizing massive funding for embryonic stem cell research, there is a clause permitting scientists to continue growing human embryos far beyond the stage at which stem cells can be harvested. Embryonic stem cells are merely the first step in an ambitious campaign to overturn all of the old taboos. Many US scientists want a blank check, both morally and financially, to conduct any experiments they wish on developing children – all in the name of promised future cures for disease. A Lone VoiceBraveheart is lone voice speaking out against cloning human embryos for research Here is the text of Mel Gibson's TV commercial against California's Proposition 71, which authorized $3 billion to be spent on embryonic stem cell research: "Research on adult and umbilical cord stem cells has led to cures in 300,000 cases. But that's not what Proposition 71 is about. This is Mel Gibson and I'm concerned that the people aren't fully informed about Prop 71. We have a lot of questions to ask, like why are we being misled into thinking Prop 71 isn't about cloning, when it is? That's what it says: 'Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer,' and that's a scientific term for cloning. If cloning human embryos for destruction is so promising, why aren't private companies paying the $6 billion? Because in 23 years embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single human cure. All it yielded is tumors, rejections and mutations. See, that science doesn't attract venture capital, so why should the taxpayers be bled dry? This is Mel Gibson. I'm voting no on Prop 71. Creating life simply to destroy it is wrong, particularly when there are effective alternatives readily available." |
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