Christian Worldview Concepts

The Promise and Peril of the Embryo

Justifiable Destruction?

I do not know anyone who is actually against any and all forms of stem cell research. I certainly am not. It is only when a particular adjective is added to "stem cell research" that my opposition is aroused. It is when we speak of "embryonic" stem cell research that I am compelled to speak against it. Embryonic stem cell research has provoked the most discussion because it is these cells that evoke the most intense moral debate. The moral status of the human embryo is the single most important issue in all of modern bioethics.

Should we permit researchers to destroy living human embryos for the sake of medical research even when the aim is to develop ways to cure horrendous diseases? Are we to bypass potential life-saving discoveries because making these discoveries requires us to destroy human beings at the earliest stages of their existence? What does it say about us as a society if we are willing to destroy one category of human beings for the sake of another?