Embryonic StemCell Research: the Final Frontier

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, yet nothing captured on film can attest to the cruelty that man is capable of such as what came to light during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. During these proceedings, Nazis were tried and convicted of crimes against humanity not only for their systematic extermination of innocents Jews but also for the unspeakable crimes that were committed against the human person in experimental labs.

Some may suggest that much of what we know about the human limits of pain endurance came from these experiments and that medical science, and ultimately humanity, has benefited from these experiments, that in some perverse way human life has been enhanced by the cruel acts and experiments that were performed on men, women, and children against their will. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that such advances would mean that such innocence was not in vain. I strongly disagree.

From these trials were born the Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics which, in essence, sought to protect human persons from being used as medical experimental subjects without their express consent. Even today, doctors cannot perform known life-saving procedures without the written consent of that person. Yet we “celebrate” the potential that stem-cells, and more specifically embryonic stem-cells, may hold for further advances in health care so much so that the Congress is now set on a collision course with President Bush who has all but guaranteed that any bill authorizing further embryonic stem-cell research will meet with his veto.



“The great weight of the evidence before us is to the effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts.”

“The Nuremberg Code”



US Senator Bill Frist and Arkansas Congressman Vic Snyder are both licensed physicians as well as representatives of the people. Yet neither of these gentlemen seems mindful of the fact that the people of the United States of America signed on to the principles contained in the Nuremberg Code in 1947 by ordering the execution of those responsible for such medical experiments.
The articles contained in the Code address various scenarios with respect to such experimentation so as to leave no ambiguity when it comes time to make decisions that affect life and limb.

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.


2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.


3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.


4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.


5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.


6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.


7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.


8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.


9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.


10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

Stem cells extracted from human embryos will result in the death of that very human person. This is why many scientists insist that further research is warranted on adult stem cell lines that have shown to have more potential than is currently recognized, perhaps even more potential than even embryonic stem cell lines.

To my knowledge, the Roman Catholic Church has been the only religious entity that has been clear in its objection to such experimentation. The intentional destruction and ultimate desecration of the human person is immoral and, according to the findings of the Nuremberg tribunal, in violation of “the international conventions, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, and Control Council Law No. 10. Manifestly human experiments under such conditions are contrary to ‘the principles of the law of nations as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and from the dictates of public conscience.’"

How can human life be enhanced if human life must be destroyed in the process? How can it be that the United States of America would deliberately and intentionally violate the precepts of findings the results of which were the executions of sixteen of the twenty-three Nazi “physicians”? This was an AMERICAN tribunal which passed judgment and determined that execution of these men was warranted, yet we find ourselves today arguing about the quality of life which may or may not enjoy certain benefits as a result of the destruction of these unborn children?

There will certainly be more to come in the next couple of days as the Congress considers measures aimed at virtually unlimited medical experimentation on children whose only crime has been that of having been conceived. Many of those who were destroyed in Nazi labs were mentally retarded and otherwise handicapped to the point of being deemed “asocial”, a life not worthy of consideration, in addition to civilians and POW’s not of German nationality, presumably for the “benefit” of German society.

Was it worth it then? Will it be now? We have to draw the line somewhere, and President Bush drew the line in 2001 when he stopped federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, reasoning that the existing seventy-eight stem cell lines would be adequate since they already existed. Scientists have since determined that the number was substantially less than first believed, so they want more. To what end?

If you are willing to sacrifice even one child “for the benefit of society”, I dare you to select even one whose life would be “worth it” for the benefit of humanity and I will say to you, “What good is saving a life at the expense of one’s soul?”