Real Clear Truth

As Christians, we often like to look back at the founding of America and consider all the ways that Providence shown on our country in large messure due to the wisdom, character and values of our founding fathers. Likewise, we can look at other eras in our history and see that same hand of Providence at work even when we were greatly divided as a country, as the civil war shows us. But thankfully, Providence is still at work in our country at another time of division, this time on the ethical debate surrounding embryonic stem cell research.

The secular community has largely ignored the ethical problems with harvesting embryonic stem calls, in part because the potential reward in using these cells is so great, and in part because to ascribe any intrinsic value to such cells inherently implies that abortion also has ethical dilemmas attached to it.

So it was to the dismay of a great many that president Bush put restraints on government funding of embryonic stem cell research. But in case you haven’t heard, a recent breakthrough in stem cell research appears to have settled this debate because scientists have discovered an alternate method of obtaining stem cells without the need to harvest them from embryos. Here’s what the New York Times reports (see here):

Researchers and ethicists not involved in the findings say the work, conducted by independent teams from Japan and Wisconsin, should reshape the stem cell field. At some time in the near future, they said, today’s debate over whether it is morally acceptable to create and destroy human embryos to obtain stem cells should be moot.

This is great news. But what does this have to do with Providence? Well consider that one of the two scientists involved in this incredible find said the following:

“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.”

– James A. Thomson

It was this discomfort that led Thomson to look for alternate methods of obtaining stem cells. It was this discomfort that led president Bush to put restrictions on what the federal government would fund. It was this discomfort that led Bush to appointing a “Council on Bioethics” to consider what means might be found to circumvent these ethical obstacles. It was this council’s recommendation that the government should support research into how adult cells might be converted into stem cells. And it was that support that encouraged Thomson to continue his quest.

And this is where Providence shown in. For not only did Thomson find the “Holy Grail” of stem cell research. He discovered the “astonishing good fortune that nature requires only four injected genes to turn an ordinary adult skin cell into a magical stem cell that can become bone or brain or heart or liver.” Thomson’s discovery is so simple that far more research labs can investigate this method. The previous method of harvest embryonic stem cells was complex and far less research labs could perform it.

Thus, the fact that this new technique is so simple will mean that most research will now move in that direction. A whole new world has opened up, one that is far easier to work in, but only because the ethical considerations drove men like Thomson and president Bush to say, in effect, “hold it, let’s not so easily go down the path that takes no consideration of the value of embryonic human life”. Instead, they were compelled by their values to find another way, and Providence has vindicated them.

See Charles Krauthammer’s article here that makes this same point brilliantly. Note, Krauthammer is an atheist, but it appears even atheists can have more faith than others.