Blogger D.F. Moore has done me the honor of responding to my latest Kass post. It’s my very first trackback, so I’m kind of pumped. Thanks, Mr. Moore!

My argument stands accused of being sophomoric and unhelpful. Well, regarding the first count, guilty as charged, sir! Though my opinions may be sophomoric, I shall endeavor to soldier on bravely. They say that even a cat may look at a king.

Now as to the matter of unhelpfulness in the debate, I must disagree. Does it count that I wasn’t concerned with an ongoing debate, as such? Had I been trying to “contribute to the debate”, I would have (metaphorically speaking) shaved and worn my best suit. I fear that Mr. Moore has mistaken my intent. Contributing to the debate strikes me as being on a par with contributing to the King Canute Wetlands Reclamation Fund. Nor was my post focused on the Bioethics Council, as such. I was just going after Kass, which is my habit, and something I enjoy. Please note, unlike some scurrilous anti-Kassian wretches, I provide link access to the entirety of his quoted articles when possible. Readers are free, nay, strongly encouraged to graze upon the rolling meadows of his prose. And remember folks, it’s not ad hominem if he really said it!

"....if one could do something about Alzheimer's, if one could do something about chronic arthritis, if one could do something about general muscular weakness and not, somehow, increase the life expectancy to 150 years, I would be delighted." Leon Kass on Sage Crossroads

“Justin’s argument, if I’m reading it correctly, is a new one to me.” D.F. Moore

Actually, I don’t believe Mr. Moore is reading my argument correctly. And it’s really more of a fixed opinion, based on elementary observations, than an argument. First, it’s necessary to unpack the controversy over stem cells from that over life extension in general. My first observation would be that in the latter arena, Kass is fighting a losing battle. Try as I might, I simply cannot imagine a scenario where radical life extension is not achieved within the next century and a half, will he or nil he. I wonder if Mr. Moore would agree with this observation?

In a multi-polar world with competing factions, there is no single power that can say no to technical progress and make it stick. Perhaps I was a little vague with the “Some people, somewhere” line, but I meant to be. Not having top of the line scrying equipment, I am as much in the dark about specifics as anyone. But, if I absolutely had to guess, I would incline towards mainland China. Or India. Or Singapore. Irrespective of the specific actors involved ( Switzerland? Israel? ) you don’t need a crystal ball to see that we will eventually be handed a fait accompli. I don’t believe that the whole wide world shares our particular prejudices and squeamishness. Nor can we make them do so. How could we? Brute force? Economic sanctions? Bribery? If I’m wrong here, what am I missing? This fait accompli assumes that the United States unilaterally implements comprehensive restrictions on Life Extension By Any Means, which I don’t find terribly realistic. But as I said before, assume for the sake of the argument that we do. We turn ourselves into Kass Land. What follows?

The line will not hold. Too many people on our side will want it to fail. Fifth columnists will be trying to torch the portcullis and lower the drawbridge. You don’t have to be a genius to see this.

Okay, sure, you could point out that merely being on the winning side doesn’t make you right. What about the Good and the True? All that the man wants is a discussion of these important issues. What’s wrong with a good old fashioned chin wag?

"There is something deeply repugnant and fundamentally transgressive about such a utilitarian treatment of prospective human life. This total, shameless exploitation is worse, in my opinion, than the "mere" destruction of nascent life....any opponent of the manufacture of cloned humans must, I think, in the end oppose also the creating of cloned human embryos..." Leon Kass
The Wisdom of Repugnance

Well, talking is good, talking is important. But, saving lives is important too. Which leads to my second observation. He cannot win, he can only impede.

Should the triumph of (perceived) evil be resisted, even at long odds? To crib a line from Groucho, “I don’t know, let me see the evil.” If you were engaged in fighting a counter-revolution, for whatever great cause, and you knew you were going to (inevitably) lose, how long would you soldier on? Would you continue the good albeit hopeless fight at the cost of other (post-natal) people’s lives? Lots and lots of other people’s lives? Would you even care? Might you tell yourself that pursuit of your cause was a matter of principle, and therefore non-negotiable though the heavens fall? Would you try to convince yourself that winning was still an option, even when you knew it wasn't?

Or would you surrender, and try for an accommodation you can live with? In his writings at least, the Chairman comes across as the former guy and not the latter. Sure, he may be a peach of a guy in real life, but so what? He thinks longer lives are a really bad idea. He says it a lot, in a lot of different ways. I happen to disagree, and I believe Mr. Moore does too. Here’s my final, obvious, observation. Impeding research today will cost lives tomorrow. If, as they say, over a thousand Americans per day die of heart disease, what’s the cost of a delaying a cure by one month? By six months? By even a week? Stopping to smell the roses has a fearful opportunity cost. So who died and made him God?

Regarding Mr. Moore, I truly believe that all he wants to do is ensure a fair, open, honest debate on the incredibly vital and frightening issues at hand. I agree with everything he says about nanotech, bionanotech and the daunting scope of the challenges they present. I also rather admire his personal accomplishments. I am not smart enough to do what he does for a living. I’ll even agree that (for now) the Council is doing a fair job. Am I allowed to be skeptical about its future? And it’s Chairman? I will never be convinced that the Kass worldview wasn’t decanted from the cellars of Laputa. I have a hunch that decades in the company of moldering tomes and worshipful dewy-eyed undergrads have propelled the poor man to vasty, philosophickal hytes beyond my workaday ken. Standing beside him, I know I must seem a shallow and frivolous fellow, preoccupied with ephemera, but I’m pretty much comfortable with that. And how deep do you need to be, really, to see that on this particular subject, the Emperor has no clothes?

Leaving Dr. Kass behind us for a bit, and regarding the stem cell “debate” as such, I notice that all of the attending parties seem to have already staked out their positions. Further, they seem to be basing those positions on a fairly clear understanding of the science involved. Refer to Mr. Moore’s comments section, and the transcripts of the Council. Notwithstanding the futility involved (Canute again), I was sorely tempted to leave a comment myself. As it happened, my thoughts were admirably conveyed by “Fly,” in a manner more concise and agreeable than I could possibly have managed. Thanks, Fly!

Based on what I’ve read there, It would seem that opinions have already been set in stone, at least for the moment. Gosh, I know mine have. What good then, does Mr. Moore think that THIS SPECIFIC debate will entail? Clarification? Conversion? Is there really anyone sitting on the fence on this one? What I truly think might be “helpful” at this point, is dissemination of the issues to a much wider audience and providing that audience with educational resources. Then they can be polarized and contentious, too. In my humble way, I feel I may be doing this.

“If Justin admits that there is a gray area, then aren’t we, as moral beings, charged with separating it out and determining what is right and what is wrong?”

I would answer that question with a vigorous perhaps. In this specific case, I’m dubious of the short-term utility. Sure, it’s fun and all, and you can play ”gotcha” with your opponents, but I would actually prefer to defer, if at all possible. If we can agree on the existence of a gray area, can we not also demarcate its bounds and then make sure that we just don’t go there? Maybe this could move progress along in the real world just a little faster? I feel a certain sense of urgency here. One of my fears is that too leisurely an exploration of complex philosophical and ethical ramifications might actually delay the implementation of life saving therapies. I wouldn’t want people to die as a result of that. Would anyone be comfortable with that?

My other fear is that elements of our intellectual odyssey might be seized upon by, umm, certain factions within society, as an excuse for promoting “unduly restrictive” legislation. It’s much harder to repeal a bad law than to simply prevent it from being enacted. My intuition is that Dr. Kass longs to act as a sea anchor on the great ship of medical progress. What harm in slowing down to stop and take our bearings? Well, perhaps a great deal. I am curious as to Mr. Moore’s opinion regarding the proposed Brownback legislation.

Now, let us suppose that I believe partial birth abortion is murder. It destroys a healthy, functioning human brain. Goodbye, small person. And let us say I assent to a general ban on third trimester abortion, with certain caveats. For me, the gray area would involve advanced neural activity and structure. I believe it takes a human brain to enable a human person. If we studiously avoided that stage of development and its sequelae, I would have few qualms about embryological research. Many people agree with this point of view. Others, of course, feel that there IS NO GRAY AREA. They feel that the “protective umbrella of human dignity” should be extended to the first, finely parsed second of a nascent human life. Now, how do you debate that? I suspect that no amount of verbal “exploration” will change their convictions. I also suspect that such perceived intransigence on their part merely stiffens the resolve of the other camp. Feedback, meet stalemate. Hence, my dubiousness.

Speaking for myself, I don’t believe that a self directing, self organizing clump of two hundred cells has the same claim to human dignity and protection as a twelve year old child. A healthy eight month old fetus, on the other hand, does. Having somewhat nailed down the two opposing ends of that spectrum, is probing the gray area in between an immediately pressing moral imperative? Only if we plan on skating close to the edge. And lacking that inducement, I fear that it would be quite the reverse if we were to halt research with, just off the top of my head, a four year federal moratorium while the moral inquiry proceeds. I would cheerfully sacrifice several blastocysts to save a (post-natal) child. In some eyes, this would make me a murderer and, perhaps worse, Logically Inconsistent. Where are the words to change such people’s minds, or even my own? Nowhere.

So then, it becomes a waiting game, while a Kuhn type paradigm shift percolates through society? The past repeats itself? Well...damn... Not to single out the Catholic Church (the nuttier Protestants can be far worse), but they do have a long and educational history regarding opposition to medical innovations past.

Let’s see now there was basic sanitation, medical school dissection, autopsies, vaccination, anesthesia (particularly for childbirth), antibiotics (particularly for venereal disease) no wait, that might have been American sectarian tub-thumpers. Who sometimes oppose blood transfusion, even to this day, even unto death. Temporarily departing the medical arena, we can observe that amusing little heliocentric worldview tiff…routine witch burning…enslavement of pagan indigenes…sodomite burning…swords point conversions…burning of heretics…the various flavors of Inquisition, and of course, the theory of evolution. The Vatican has ruled, in the last century, that evolution is more than a hypothesis. Well, knock me over with a feather.

Let me just detour for one minute. Back in the day, part of my college history materials included a transcript from an interrogation by the Spanish Inquisition. A middle-aged woman was accused of backsliding into Judaism, based on her reluctance to eat pork. She had been ratted out by her husband’s apprentices, and apostasy was a Big Deal back then. Right about the time they started dislocating her arms, she began to confess. Or tried to, anyway. But she didn’t know why they had nabbed her. She was begging the Holy Fathers “What have I done? Dear God! What have I done?” Why? So that she could agree to whatever it was and be executed, to stop the pain. They kept mum. Being morally serious men, they wanted a voluntary and honest self-incrimination. It certainly made for disturbing reading. Decades later, I still haven't forgotten it. And of course, in the Church’s defense, the secular authorities were no better back then. The Church was just a fiend for accurate record keeping, is all. Does anyone think it’s possible to be philosophically well educated, self-consistently moral, and still do evil?

The point though, the Real Point here is that the Catholic Church has been known to change its mind. They have made mistakes before, and they have even admitted them. So, in all honesty, how do we know that this isn’t one of those times? When will we know? Must we wait on that paradigm shift, yet one more time? Aquinas thought that insufficiently developed embryos lacked a fully human soul. Today, that’s out the window. Augustine, with his “unfructified seeds” and Aquinas with his forty day “Hominization” musings, have been revised by doctrinal fiat. How inerrant is that? Maybe if we wait another hundred years, the Church will reverse its current doctrine and first month embryos will no longer have souls (again). And by the way, whatever happened to limbo? It’s just one more mystery. Ah well, at least there's hope for the future.

I fear that the inflexible Protestant logicians will be made of sterner stuff. They have no wiggle room left at all. Perhaps they are a small enough demographic that I need not be worried about them. But I do worry. I think that I shall break my own rule here, and actually try and turn back the tide, just a little.

If any of my readers are of such an unyielding persuasion, let me offer a scenario for them, a peek into the future. First, imagine someone you love dearly. Anyone you like, really, but this will work better with one of your children. I shall imagine a twelve year old girl, named, oh, let’s say Miriam. I shall further imagine that she is bright, witty, caring and athletic. But temporarily, she’s a little uncoordinated, which is unfortunate because she has fallen out of a tree and broken her neck. And so has your loved one. Sadly, this actually happened to Chris, a boy I knew, dead these thirty four years now. But these two are more fortunate than poor Chris, and are merely quadriplegic now. I guess it’s lucky that we’re living in the future. Doctors can cure them, using embryonic stem cells.

Now the point of this scenario is not that they can be cured in other ways. I am high-handedly ruling those other therapies unavailable, just for the sake of the argument. And the fact that embryonic stem cell therapy might not work at all is also not considered. That falls outside the limits of this particular exercise. Nope, only embryonic stem cells can save the day here. Because this scenario is about you.

Now, no cheating here, you have to really imagine someone you love, motionless in a hospital bed. I’m imagining it myself, just as hard as I can. Here come the doctors, ready to start curing. What do you tell them? What will you do? And, most particularly, how do you feel about it ?

In my own case, Miriam is in luck, and a sub-millimetric nascent human is not. She walks. What about your case?

Perhaps you will choose to rationalize, and let them do it. In olden times, during famines, parents sometimes stole food to feed their children. Which might mean other children starved. Some few parents, especially desperate, might rob or even kill to feed their children. Would you? How different is that from your hospital dilemma? After all, those cells can't even feel pain, or think. They don't even know they're alive. Would you cast aside your morals for love?
Perhaps.

Or perhaps you are made of sterner stuff. You think that people are people, no matter how small, and that to assent to such an act would be murder most foul. If such is the case, I can only stand by in mute admiration of your indomitable spirit. No matter the temptation, you will not murder to save your loved one. But, would you want to, just a little?

Whatever your decision, don’t feel that you have to let me know. I’m just posing interesting questions here. You’re the one who should care about the answers. But you might want to think about something else, too. If you were tempted to say yes, but morality deterred you, you should consider that a comfortable majority of people in this country would feel just like you did, but also find this particular moral dilemma impossibly arcane, and pointless.

I suppose they love their own children as much as you love yours. Do you think they will meekly allow them to remain crippled? That's what your side will be up against.