A Devil’s Bargain: Rethinking Embryo Science
May 22, 2008
Princeton professor and member of the President’s Council on Bioethics Robert P. George was on the nationally-syndicated “Albert Mohler Program” discussing George’s latest book, “Embryo.”
Albert Mohler: Why in the world is the human embryo worth this much concern?
Robert P. George: Simple reason: A human embryo is not something distinct or different from a human being in the way a rock, or a potato, or a rhinoceros is a different kind of thing from a human being. A human embryo is nothing less then a human being in the early stages of his or her natural development. A human embryo will, unless prevented from doing so … develop itself—himself, herself—from the embryonic into and through the fetal, infant, child and adolescent stages and ultimately into adulthood like you or me…. What you got here is a human being.
Mohler: …You say, “Our position in this book is that claims based in religious traditions, or revelation are simply not necessary to arrive at correct understandings of embryo science, technology and ethics.” So how do you arrive at those conclusions?
George: … Sometimes those who support embryo killing say that there is a great mystery, great uncertainty about when human life begins, that it’s an obscure or a mysterious question, even a religious question. But it’s not. It’s a question about fundamental scientific fact. And on the science the facts are clear. From the very beginning, the earliest embryonic stage, you have a new individual human being.
Mohler: Now you suggest three important facts about the human embryo. You say, number one, the embryo is from the start distinct from any cell from the mother or the father; two, the embryo is human, it has the genetic makeup characteristic of human beings and; three, the embryo is a complete or whole organism, though immature. When I look at those three statements I wonder how anyone can contradict, or argue with anyone of them.
George: It’s very hard to. In fact, I would say it’s impossible to. The scientific facts have been well established and, by now, long established. And remember, one need not look these facts up in the Bible, or consult the history or tradition of the church, or the authority of any ecclesiastical institution or ecclesiastical leader. These facts are right there before our eyes and can be known simply by looking up any elementary text book on human embryology or developmental biology. The facts of science are very plain, and the science fully supports the pro-life position.
Mohler: What kind of legislation would you like to see…?
George: What I’d like to see is certainly, to begin with, the prohibition of all funding of embryo-destructive research, all federal government funding of embryo-destructive research. Then I’d like to see a national ban on all forms of cloning, including cloning to create embryos that would be destroyed in biomedical research. Then, if possible, I would like us to go beyond simply restricting the funding for embryo-destructive research, but also to prohibit the practice of destroying embryos for biomedical research. I’d also like to get a ban on animal human hybridinization.
None of this is anti-science by the way. We want science to go forward. We affirm science. Science is something that is good in itself because of the knowledge that it brings and also something that promises great advances for medicine and for the preservation of human health and the relieving of human suffering. But science must proceed according to ethical principles, otherwise we will go down the road [of Germany], falling into the vile belief that there are certain forms of life that are unworthy of protection, what the Germans called—not simply the Nazi’s, but the progressive Germans who invented the eugenics doctrine in the 1920s lebensunwertes leben— life unworthy of life—that’s a concept I hope Americans will always abjure.
Mohler: I appreciate the fact that you pointed out that it didn’t take the Nazi’s to come up with that. Actually, it was the doctors under the Weimar regime—a liberal Westerner regime.
George: That’s right. They were a democratic, constitutional people at the time. They regarded themselves as progressive—what we would call today liberal people, but they took their country down the road that landed them with Nazi policies, with the regard to the destruction of first the handicapped and then many other classes of people.
Mohler: The argument they used was the very same argument we’re getting here: We will improve the health of the human species by doing this. That is what the Weimar doctors had claimed.
George: It was a devil’s bargain and I hope we’ll never accept it.
In addition to being one of Salem’s nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and recognized as one of America’s leading theologians and cultural commentators. Contact Dr. Mohler at mail@albertmohler.com.
Originally published May 22, 2008.
