From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Mon Dec 30 2002 - 01:04:21 MST
Damien Broderick wrote:
> Brett Paatsch reckons:
> > I'm tired of hearing just the same old stale conventional wisdom on
> > cloning, (not from this list, but generally - it seems the analysis
always
> > quits because of the yuck factor and the overwhelming desire of most
> > people not to stray too far of the track off the "politically
> > correct" kicks in.)
>
> I'd say the single preposterous objection lurking beneath the `revulsion'
> etc isn't anything that could be termed `political correctness'; it's
> *religious* correctness.
{NB: sincere apologies for the length of this - I am no writer. A
big chunk or examples in the middle between two lines
marked thus ---------- can be skipped with no great loss}
I think religious correctness is a biggie. But after 8 months of
lobbying around the stem cell issue I think there is also a
secondary problem as well, and that is that we choose the
grounds on which we fight our battles all too often far too
poorly. Frequently we let the religious conservatives pick both
the battlefield and the language which is used in the battle. And
(as in the current case) many who should know better from
painful personal experience still resort to ridiculing the smaller
group of superstitious clowns to appease and curry favour with
the larger group of superstitious clowns. And no favour is ever
curried.
There are many forms of nonsense and superstition in the world
and all too few clear thinkers with a capacity to get on and
make a difference. I've noticed most of my fellow lobbyists
in the stem cell industry and patient advocacy groups are almost
falling over themselves to say their work and their projects are
nothing like what Clonaid and the Raelians have done.
Personally I think they are fighting on exactly the grounds the
religious conservatives would wish them to. They seem to be
constantly apologising and in retreat. The most powerful
form of lobbying is imo education and in the case of stem cells
its scientific and biological education. Media events like the
current "cloning" hoohah could be used as educational
opportunities. Joe and Jane average might just be interested
enough at present to have some biological knowledge thats
good for them slipped past their guard but most of those who
could best do the educating are busy joining in the chorus of
ridicule on the Raelians.
-----------------------------
Those who like short emails can skip this part its examples
of statements made by religious conservative politicians
in the Australian federal parliament during the recent stem cell
debate. My point is to show how shallow and specious are
even the deepest "reasons" and convictions actually were
(despite in my view being genuinely held). I also hope that it
will be possible to see that the battle over language is not
esoteric its fundamental in championing extropic causes.
I think we may be "talking for our lives" and for someone
with my verbosity thats scary.
Senator Guy Barnett. The main organiser of petitions
against ES cell research says on the front page of his
45 page "stem cell information kit".
"A human embryo is not a commodity to be sold or a
resource for experimentation, exploitation or research. As
a community we should draw a line in the sand, and say
the protection of human life at whatever age, in
whatever form, is an absolute. No ifs or buts."
Its a good thing for Barnett he doesn't want to hear
ifs or buts. Someone might have informed him that each
cell in a tumor removed from a cancer patient is a "form" of
"human life". His view put into policy would stop the
killing of cancer cells to save the life of a person.
Christopher Pyne MP, in his speech to the Bill on
Tuesday, 20 August 2002.
"There will be amendments moved to this bill which I will
support and hope will be adopted. But after those
amendments are made, if they are successful, I will be voting
against this Bill, because the only way (sic) for society
to demonstrate its belief in the value of human life, is to
ban embryonic stem cell research.."
Pyne didn't seem to have too strong a grasp on the notion
that human cells make up human tissues which make up
organs, which make up the whole organism or "person"
either. Whenever pro-therapeutic cloners uses the term
"human life" instead of "person" they adopt the foggy
terminology of the religious conservatives and talk straight
to their existing prejudices. The term "human life" obscures
the key point that not all forms of human life would be equal
even in the minds of the religious unless they want to go into
to bat for cancer cells.
Alan Cadman, MP, in his speech to the Bill on Wed,
21August 2002.
"I too believe that life begins the moment that sperm enters
the ovum.." "..we ought to consider what we do with
research. I am opposed to the use of IVF embryos for
experimental purposes".
Alan apparently doesn't know that the sperm that
contributed to the zygote that became him was alive
beforehand. Many amongst the public probably would
not know that as sperm have already undergone the
phenomenon of crossover as part of the process of
meiosis before they fertilize the ovum, Alan's linage can
be meaningfully traced back not just to any coupling
of sperm and egg but to a *particular* sperm and egg
pairing from amidst many millions of possibilities. If
Alan knew this "every sperm being sacred" might not
just be a song in poor taste to him. Alas he was never
even engaged on this level.
Finally, Kevin Andrews, the Minister for Health and
Aging himself: Arguable the most ardent anti-somatic
cell nuclear transfer and ES cell or all over time, says:
"(The) enlightened tradition (of doing "no harm") has
always placed great emphasis on the intrinsic worth
and equal value (sic) of every human life regardless
of its stage or condition. I believe that we should not
depart from it".
Andrews apparently overlooks that this tradition has
pertained to "human life" where "human life" was
taken to mean "persons". Mr Andrews here over-
extends the old principle to all forms of human life
regardless of its "stage or condition". Scientifically
"human life" includes not just embryos and sperm,
but also skin and hair cells.
Cancer cells are also a "condition" of "human life".
By extending the use of the term "human life" to
cover embryos (and apparently other forms of
human life) Andrews is clearly parting with the
very tradition he invokes.
Andrews goes on "I believe that it is dangerous
to treat any (sic) human life as expendable".
Well the point about "human life" not being the
same as a "person" has been made several times.
But the religious conservatives consistently used
such terms as "human life", "human dignity",
"human rights" over and over as though all
forms of human life took place on one level and
as though an embryo was on a par with a person.
Whilst the status of forms of human life such as
sperm and cancer cells was never raised.
In so many case the most heartfelt concerns of the
anti-campaigners were not even engaged. In my
view many of them may have been turned if they
were engaged as they had already acquired a lot
of knowledge and had made emotional commitments
to the effort of understanding. Not all for sure.
But in taking the debate to the right level we would
have been far better able to pick up and engage
a better educated public next time.
--------------------------------
>
> It's the *immaterial soul* and its heavenly
> salvation that all these terrible scientific
> interventions are putting at risk. Even those
> anticloning humanists who claim otherwise are
> caught inside this medieval trap. My local paper
> mentioned this morning, in the middle of the usual
> bungled report, that the Pope and his theologians
> teach that `life begins at conception'. That is felt to
> be a killer rejoinder (so to speak), and nobody
> stands up to say, `Oy, everyone *knows* that *life*
> (snake, cat, dog, human) begins at conception
> --modulo a few details about implantation, etc; but the
Actually quite seriously it doesn't. I have a book on
developmental biology on my shelf that starts chronicling
life from the time the egg and sperm are formed in the
parents (more scientific terms used).
> salient ethical/moral issue is when *personhood*
Absolutely. "Personhood" is the line at which we should be
rallying. "Personhood" is something that Joe and Jane may not
use naturally but they know the difference when they see it.
They know intuitively a potential person, an embryo, is not
morally the same as a person.
What they don't know is how extensively their best interests
are being diddled (in terms of making medicines available
sooner) as they don't understand the processes by which
medicines are developed .
Also extropic types can conceive of non-human persons at
some point in the future.
> begins, or can be assessed,
> fuzzily, to have begun.' The trouble is that you can't *say*
> that kind of thing in available English.
It is a *big* problem that we can't say it concisely enough to
get through the concentration spans of the intended audience.
But we can do far better in not allowing "human life" a ridiculously
broad term to go unchallenged also. It may have been quite
effective to have journalists ask Barnett what part of a human
cancer cell he thought was either not alive or not human and did
he really think it should be protected as an absolute.
But obviously these techniques are laborious.
> We just don't have common words to convey what
> is meant by `personhood', other than the sloppy and often misleading term
> `human life', usually elided to `life' pure and simple.
>
Aaah! There's that term again :-).
> True, there are further issues at stake with cloning, even if it works
> right: impossibly onerous expectations by the older twin/parent, derision
> from peers, the possible erosion of the recognized value of a human being
as
> an end rather than a means, etc. But those already obtain in many cases of
> parents and their kids, or oddball kids and their peers, and so on.
Yes.
>
> The most gruesomely hilarious element in the current imbroglio is the way
> the press babble mockingly about `cults who believe humans were cloned
from
> aliens' and `little green men' (actually I don't think the Raelians favour
> *green* aliens, but hey), and oppose these absurdities with ethical
> announcements from the far more sensible people who believe in the
virginal
> birth of a god-man who later returned from the dead.
Yeah and these same press will adopt the same mocking demeanour, with
cryonics, and nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.
I don't want to defend Raelians but I don't want the media to get too
carried away with mocking as there are times I'd like them to examine
unlikely propositions (to them) sceptically.
Regards,
Brett
(a tad war-weary)
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