On embryos and acorns
By Reggie Rivers
Denver Post Columnist
Thursday, July 19, 2001

I will always choose real people over theoretical people.
There's an ethical and moral debate raging about whether
scientists should use human embryonic stem cells in the
search for cures to diseases. Many people say that extracting
the cells is wrong. They believe that an embryo, even at just
a few days old, is a human being and destroying it is murder.

I disagree. At that stage of development, an embryo
is a theoretical person. If you want to meet some real people,
go visit a children's hospital.

You'll see kids who are suffering from brain disease, heart
defects, cancer, diabetes, paralysis and a whole lot more.
You'll see parents walking out of the hospital with exhausted,
desperate faces. They're frustrated because there's nothing
they can do to take the pain away.

If someone ever tried to pick up your child and walk away
with her, you'd do anything you could to stop him, even
if it meant giving up your own life.

But what do you do when the enemy is inside your child's body?
What do you do when there's a growth or a deficiency that
is taking your child an inch at a time and all you can do is watch?

You turn to God and doctors and technology. You pray that they'll
find a cure and that your son or daughter will be saved before it's
too late.

Go meet some of those kids and ask yourself how many of them
you're willing to let die in order to protect the lives of theoretical
people.

The answer for me is none. I want scientists to do as much research
with as many human embryos as necessary to find the cures
for some of these diseases. I believe an embryo is a theoretical
person who should be sacrificed to benefit real people.

An acorn is not an oak tree. A seed is not a rose bush. An embryo
is not a human being.

An acorn, a seed and an embryo all have the potential to "become"
something, but that doesn't mean that they are that something
right now.

Given the right temperature, water, nutrients and exposure
to the sun, that acorn might eventually become an oak tree.
But a squirrel who eats the acorn is not killing an oak tree,
he's merely eating an acorn to sustain his own life.

A scientist who extracts stem cells from an embryo is not
committing murder, he's destroying an embryo to extend
the lives of real people.

The cells, called pluripotent, are capable of developing into
any one of the 210 different types of tissue in the human body,
so scientists believe they can use the stem cells to regenerate
nerves, organs, muscles or blood.

They would be extracted from embryos that are just a few days
old. These embryos don't have brains, they don't have nervous
systems, they don't have organs, they don't have anything
except DNA and the building blocks for making a human.

The crux of this debate is framed the same way as the abortion
issue. When does life begin? When does a human soul develop?
Is it at conception? Are women who use birth control pills
committing murder?

I think the real issue is in the competing lives involved.
Even people who are opposed to abortion are willing to allow it
if the life of the mother is in danger. Why is the mother's life
more important? If both lives are of equal importance,
wouldn't it make just as much sense to abort the mother
to save the baby?

Of course not. The mother is a real person; the fetus is
a theoretical person. Not every acorn will become an oak tree.
Some of those acorns are going to be consumed to sustain
the lives of others.

Former Denver Broncos player Reggie Rivers
([log in to unmask])
writes Thursdays on the Post op-ed page
and is a talk host on KHOW Radio
(630 AM, weekdays from 3 to 5 p.m.)

SOURCE: The Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,155%257E70489,00.html

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