Stem Soul Searching

We pretend as a society not to understand the fuss over stem cell research.  Pro-life advocates have cause for concern.  If we cannot persuade people of good moral conscience to safeguard babies in the womb that look like born children, how can we move people to feel pity for souls trapped in Petri dishes?

How can we fight against Superman and Marty McFly when all these scientists want is to cure everything with the philosopher’s stone that MUST be locked in these little beings’ beginning bodies?

By thinking about what Christ has said, "Whoever receives one of these little ones, receives me."  The cure for all these diseases and sufferings IS locked in little ones such as these, if only they are allowed the privilege of growing up.   One person or many such as these one day shall uncover the tools necessary for curing spinal injuries and Parkinson’s.   They will have all started out as small little zygotes and embryos that could have been sitting in Petri dishes, waiting for the rest of their lives to unfold.

It is hard for a world of practicality to accept limitations.  Stem Cell Research advocates would paint Catholics and other like minded people adamantly against the use of embryos in research as refusing science out of hand.  We don’t object to stem cell research.  We object to stem cell research generated from the deliberate destruction of nascent human life.

The pursuit of science for "the good of all mankind," has been used to justify all types of research, some of which has been done on fluffy cute bunnies and sweet white mice and helpless chimps locked in cages and doomed to a miserable short life of being an experiment.   People have rightly protested that just because we have the power and ability to perform acts which injure or kill creatures for the purpose of learning more or perfecting what we already know, does not mean that morally or ethically, we should.

We understand as a society that we have an obligation as the stewards of this earth and all its creatures, to preserve them, to protect them from our abuses of excess, neglect, greed and curiosity.  We understand the need to watch over the trees which will not love us back and the ugly creatures including bugs and snakes.   We must care for all creation, not just for today but for always.   The majority of our society understands all of creation is somehow linked, and that the loss of any species is a loss for the whole world.  The majority further understand that even those creatures and non sentient living things that are not endangered deserve our kindness and protection while in existence.

If we understand these facts, then how is it we reconcile these very laudable ethics with infant stem cell research, cloning, embryo hybrid experimentation and the throw away mentality that created these frozen living mausoleums of waiting embryos in the first place? We cannot, if we are honest morally and intellectually.

The horror of the fifty million lost to abortion thus far shall be nothing compared to the near limitless number available for experimentation if people of good will do not speak out.   We will have to be the voices for the victims who cannot cry out, who cannot rebel, who cannot be seen and thus are never acknowledged as existing.  We need to speak to the world and say, "These souls are not disposable.  These souls count." Every soul is sacred.  Every single soul.