The logical labyrinth of the stem cell veto

Embryonic development, when it proceeds inside the uterus, is usually divided into 23 specific stages and occurs during the first 8 weeks following fertilization. Stem cell research, as envisioned by the Senate's just-vetoed Enhancement Act, does not use embryos developed within the human uterus; rather, such research employs embryos which have developed outside the uterus in a nutritive medium to about Stage 4, where mitosis (cell division) is arrested by freezing and held in cryonic suspension indefinitely. At the point of freezing, the embryo has developed to a blastocyst comprised of about 100 cells, is smaller than a millimeter, and has no discernible human shape or characterstics.

There are currently about 400,000 blastocysts sitting in freezers in fertility clinics around the United States. Fertility treatment tends toward redundancy wherever possible, since in vitro fertilization is inherently more problematic than the natural human thing. Couples seeking a child through such techniques often create more embryos than they ever intend to implant, and fertility specialists pick and choose among the embryos created to select the best cell clumps (morphologically and otherwise) for implantation. Most of the embryos will never be implanted, and will ultimately be thrown away.

President Bush has, in a relatively straightforward manner, equated the deliberate destruction of IVF embryos with murder and the killing of innocent life. This is his rationale for vetoing the Enhancement Act; to sign the bill, in his view, is to offer federal financing for murder of the innocent. While he concedes research using embryonic stem cell lines offers promise, the moral equation is such that the bill must be vetoed. Bush pointed out in his tele-op conference, surrounded by "snowflake" babies, that his veto does not mean embryonic stem cell research cannot proceed through private funding or through state programs, such as those currently in California and Massachusetts.

This is a curious acquiescence, under the circumstances. If Bush is going to go so far as to equate the destruction of human embryos for research with homicide, then how can he rest his case with a simple veto of the Senate bill, denying federal funding for research? If it's murder, it's murder, and his oath of office includes his promise to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, which Bush quoted at his tele-veto conference. One of the "unalienable" rights is the right to life, which may not be taken without due process of law. While Bush was actually quoting the Declaration of Independence, you get the idea. All 50 states and the federal government have criminal laws against homicide, and Bush is sworn to enforce those laws.

So we find ourselves in a logical labyrinth, where the Swimmer always likes to splash around (excusing the mixed metaphors). Consider the following direct consequences of regarding the destruction of cell clumps as murder:

1. Why should a couple ever be allowed to "abandon" or consent to the destruction (by thawing, for example) of any currently-frozen embryo? Why isn't this, at the very least, conspiracy to commit murder?

2. If an arsonist burns down a building which happens to contain a fertility clinic housing 5,000 frozen blastocysts, hasn't the arsonist committed mass murder on a scale comparable to the 9-11 plotters?

3. If a maintenance company responsible for servicing the embryo freezer at a clinic negligently does its work, resulting in the unintentional thawing and killing of 5,000 embryos, would the employees involved be guilty of 5,000 counts of involuntary manslaughter?

4. Why would anyone in his right mind run a fertility clinic, given the heavy criminal consequences of any kind of screw-up?

Much more branching paradox can be found within Bush's Labyrinth. Focus on the idea that the destruction of a 100-cell blastocyst is the same as shooting down a grown man in cold blood, and the examples will come to you. It will also suggest the arbitrariness of investing an embryo with a soul only after fertilization. Why wait so long? The embryo, after all, resulted from penetration of an ovum by a sperm cell. Certainly the raw material of the soul must have been present in each of these component parts before fertilization and mitosis began. These arguments have all been anticipated in the abortion debate, of course. But in my memory, Bush's statements yesterday were the first time a President actually used the term "killing of innocent life" to describe the destruction of an embryo outside the human body. It's a new frontier, a new premise, an expansion and deepening of the invasion of essentially religious ideas into American life.

Not that any of this ever occurs to Bush. He just says stuff and moves on, leaving the serious thinkers capable of extrapolation to wonder just how nuts it will all get before he's through.