A Response of Christian Faith and Human Reason

In teaching theology, I have noticed that people do not make moral judgments based on facts and moral arguments alone. This tendency is not always a bad thing. Issues such as ESCR lead to questions of ultimate importance. Why do we have to die? Why accept suffering? What happens after death? The way we answer these questions in turn shapes our judgments about social issues. Let me now consider how Christian faith and human reason might respond to the issue of ESCR. We might begin by asking which Christian doctrines are relevant. Answer: All of them, because Christian faith refers to a whole reality. We do not separate Christian doctrines from one another; each one eventually leads to the others. A second answer: Compassion, because the Christian doctrine of risking one’s own life to show compassion proves compelling even to atheists, or at least to some of them. Yet compassion takes one only so far. Are there limits to compassion? What about false compassion? Can one support ESCR and still be compassionate? 

Let us consider a few core Christian teachings directly related to life and death. Even if you are not a Christian, I invite you to consider them rationally, for they are reasonable even to those who do not hold them. When a human being first comes into existence, this new individual changes the universe. Someone becomes present who will always continue to exist. Like some other religions, Christianity recognizes that the human person is immortal. The beginning of a human life signals the existence of a person who continues forever. Whether through sexual intercourse, IVF, or cloning, the origin of an embryo transforms the universe by introducing into it someone new and permanent. Perhaps this is part of the fascination that scientists have with the human embryo. 

The teaching that human beings are immortal leads to another: That physical death is not the end of a person. In the heat of political debate, opponents of ESCR are sometimes charged with contributing to the deaths of patients for whom cures might be found. It is a cheap shot, and it also presents a false view of life and death. It can never be true that “cures come too late to save a life,” but only to avoid physical death for a time. 

In fact, physical death is an event leading to a new type of existence characterized by divine charity. This new type of existence is spiritual because physical death deprives the person of his or her body. Yet this type of existence is also an encounter with the eternal God, who is Love. To express this love, God has promised each person a resurrected body, restoring what is lost in physical death. Destroying an embryo, then, does not destroy its very existence. Christians see earthly life as a preparation for eternity, characterized by a divine charity that gives life rather than takes it. 

Christianity teaches a mature approach to suffering and death that involves two complementary, though seemingly paradoxical, attitudes: 1) the willingness to accept suffering and death, and 2), the willingness to pursue strenuously the means to avoid suffering and physical death. Suffering and death are an offense to human dignity, but never destroy the whole person. God creates each person, and that person’s redemption begins in this earthly life through God’s own efforts and human cooperation. How negligent are we if we too do not struggle against both suffering and death? How negligent are we if we do not apply the care and cures we have at our disposal and as caregivers suffer willingly to do so? At the same time, Christians see the inherent contradiction in seeking types of care and cures that directly cause the death of others. Based on that very rational as well as religious insight, some people choose to accept suffering and death rather than inflict it on others. Proponents of ESCR characterize that research as a heroic search for cures. This argument makes itself more convincing by relying on the individual’s willingness to avoid strenuously both suffering and death. But that argument overlooks the other willingness: To accept suffering and death rather than inflict it upon others.

Conclusion

I do not want to leave you with the impression that ethical deliberations are eased by referring to a few key principles. Everyone struggles with how to pursue healing from whatever disease he or she has, and with how to accept that suffering. Some have helped loved ones struggle with a decision to withhold extraordinary means of care by accepting death. People always make this type of deliberation on a case-by-case basis, sifting the medical facts, the potential outcomes. This work takes great effort—and sometimes that effort leads to the realization that some types of actions should never be performed because they contradict the humanity in each of us. This contradiction explains the tragedy of ESCR, which satisfies our compassionate impulse for medical cures and research by causing the death of innocents. 

In closing I would like to propose four things:

  1. I encourage every person, especially Christians, to practice the examination of his or her own conscience. An honest questioning of one’s own ways sharpens the intellect and strengthens the will. Examining one’s conscience also cultivates a willingness to search for the truth about moral issues that matter to oneself and one’s neighbor, such as the ethics of ESCR. 

  2. I encourage every person to learn about one social issue that does not immediately concern him or her, along with those that do. Families and friends could divide up a few issues and track them over a period of time, sharing what they learn. I can imagine various organizations, such as Catholic parishes, forming groups to learn about a set of issues, including ESCR. 

  3. I encourage Christians to think about this issue in terms of their faith. For example, today Catholics celebrate the feast of the Annunciation. The Annunciation refers to an encounter between Jesus’ mother, Mary, and the angel Gabriel. Gabriel asked Mary to accept that God began his human life in her womb. What more striking contrast could there be between a human life beginning inside a woman who loves herself, loves her husband, and loves her people, and a human life beginning inside a laboratory container incapable of sustaining the life within it.

  4. I encourage every person, especially Christians, to seek help in forming his or her own conscience. Issues like ESCR require the input of many people. I would recommend in particular the Vatican documents on bioethics, Donum Vitae, which means “The Gift of Life,” and Dignitatis Personae, which means “On the dignity of the person.” About the latter, one prominent non-Catholic commentator on bioethics, Yuval Levin, has written, 

One of the great ironies of the stem cell debates of the last few years has been that some of the most serious attention to scientific detail and reality has come from Catholic circles, while some of the most wide-eyed messianic faith-healing talk has come from liberal political (and sometimes even scientific) circles… [The document’s] treatment of the latest scientific developments and of the related ethical questions is exceptionally good, and its attitude—very pro-science and very clear about ethical boundaries and the reasons for them, with arguments that reach well beyond Catholic theology—is very impressive.

Yuval Levin spells out exactly how to approach the issue: With attention to scientific facts, ethical reasoning, and honest recognition of the deeper questions at stake. To varying degrees, each of us can understand stem cell science and act morally in the face of suffering and death. Is it not the privilege of being human to do so?

Bibliography (including works cited in lecture)

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Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Instruction "Dignitatis Personae" on Certain Bioethical Questions. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2008. http://www.usccb.org/comm/Dignitaspersonae/Dignitas_Personae.pdf 

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Instruction Donum Vitae on Respect for Human Life in Its Origins and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day (Washington D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1987) [DV]. http://helpersbrooklynny.org/Donum%20Vitae.pdf

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