January 23, Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

Third Sunday of Ordinary Time
January 23, 2011

RE: Embryonic Stem Cell



To persuasively engage in the debate about Embryonic Stem Cell research, we need moral certainty, medical research expertise, and a leap of faith.

We are certain that an embryo is a human person. “He saw me in the womb.” He saw me at the instant of conception. He infused me with his love by giving me my soul.

In 1998, only twelve years ago, medical researchers discovered in embryos versatile cells, stem cells, which we could turn into any cell in the body. The potential for regenerative medicine and drug discovery and development are enormous. Extracting stem cells from the embryo also destroys the embryo.

Our leap of faith is that if God gives us the potential of stem cells, He also makes it possible to derive that good without the evil of our killing an innocent human being.

In Sunday’s Gospel, Mathew tells us that “Jesus went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.” (Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Mt4:23). One goal of medical research is to cure every disease and illness among the people.

Faith and science coexist. To live the Gospel of Life, our scientific, technological, and medical advances must not be divorced from conscientious moral and ethical guidelines: like, “thou shalt not kill.”

For scientific and moral reasons, medical researchers looked for stem cells elsewhere in the body. We discovered adult stem cells, e.g., from the placenta. These stem cells have capacities similar to those for embryonic stem cells.

Scientists know that all cells have the same genes. So, if we can program a stem cell into, say, a muscle cell, we should be able to program a muscle cell into a stem cell. In 2006, researchers accomplished this. Scientists made “induced pluripotent stem cells.” We induced cells to be able to turn into many kinds of cells.

The next scientific step asked: ‘why go backward to go forward?’ Since 2008, scientists have changed cells from one type, e.g., muscle cells, directly into another type, e.g., nerve cells.

With 20-20 hindsight, it was not necessary to destroy millions of embryos for a medical breakthrough that might improve all of our lives. With moral certitude and the faith of a mustard seed, we should stop stem cell research’s trajectory into the Culture of Death.

With moral certitude, the faith of a mustard seed, and trust in our medical researchers, we should demand that public funding for stem cell research be directed to the work being done with adult stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, and the miraculous transdifferentiation work with already developed cells.

With moral certitude and a leap of faith let’s not go down an embryonic stem cell road again. Paul exhorts us on Sunday “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ …all of you agree in what you say, [let] there be no divisions among you, be united in the same mind and in the same purpose (1Cor1:10).