US scientists close to creating artificial life

Like all good science fiction, this story contains futuristic elements which have implications for today’s world.  If we can create artificial life, would there be a difference between these two options:  (1) killing off artificial life forms before they mature, and (2) aborting human embryos?

This story begins, “US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria.”   

The story itself contains enough elements so that partisans can have great fun as they debate the propriety of this research.  My immediate reaction, however, is to look further down the road and ask about the ethical challenges that will be raised by this project.

Thinking in religious concepts, since someday these humans will have created these beings much as God created living beings, then in some sense these scientists will have become like God to them.  Like Moses was to Pharaoh, will they be God in a unique sense to these life forms they have created?

Reflecting back on Genesis 1 we see that most of the creating that was done there was accomplished by making use of pre-existing materials, just like the scientists who are now trying to create life.  Their theory is that creating life is a purely mechanical process.  Some readers will think no further because they assume that we will never have to worry about creating “real” life because only God can do that.  These are “peace in their own time” advocates who are willing to forfeit reaching a large portion of the educated world with the gospel message.

For the rest of us, there are two basic directions we can go when we want to explore our moral responsibility in this area.  The What is Life? direction is favored by most biblically-based Pro-Lifers at this time.  They basically want to argue that God breathing “the breath of life” into the human as described in Genesis means that life is much more than matter, but also consists of a spiritual substance.  We cannot debate this complicated issue here.  Suffice it to say that literary evidence indicates that this phrase simply indicates that the person or animal is alive in the usual sense.

Ethical arguments that depend on the definition of life become technical and legalistic, and inevitably lead to immoral behavior since people will always find a way to do what they want to do anyway.  The bankruptcy of this legalistic approach to social policy is illustrated, in part, by the track record of Pro-Life states according to one report…

Foster care payment rates are lowest in pro-life states. The willingness of the state to aid needy children who remained with their mothers was negatively correlated with pro-life content of the laws. In other words, pro-life states are determined to prevent women from having abortions but seem unwilling to provide a decent level of support for those children after birth.

The final measure of state willingness to aid children-the level of education spending per child enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade-also was negatively correlated with the pro-life content of state abortion statues. In fact, it appears that the pro-choice states are more committed to providing for the society’s weakest and most vulnerable than are the pro-life states.  (CET, 2001)

I think a more scientifically and biblically accurate, and a more helpful approach to this challenge is to ask:  
What Do We Want? 

• Do we want all embryos to grow to maturity, regardless of whether they are being raised in families that want them?
• Do we want every life that gets started to have to continue to exist as long as possible no matter what?
• What kind of a world do we want to create?

These are the kinds of questions that should frame the debate about the ethics of life, about abortion, and about end-of-life ethics. 

It’s not too early to be answering these questions, because another recent headline tells us…

 Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years 

Besides that, we need the answers now.

Court Clears Way for Egg Rights Showdown

by P. Solomon Banda

Associated Press (Nov 13, 2007)

The Colorado Supreme Court has cleared the way for the anti-abortion group, Colorado for Equal Rights, to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person.  If 76,000 signatures are collected within the next six months, Colorado voters will be forced to decide whether to approve a measure which would give fertilized human embryos the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process.

Nothing could be more obvious than to conclude that human cells at every stage of development constitute human life.  The question our society wants us to ask for legal purposes is at what point do these cells become a person. That point is when the power of the state will begin to enforce all the constitutional rights to which every individual is entitled.

As one supporter of the proposed Colorado amendment says, “If it’s a human being, it’s a person, and hey, they deserve equal rights under our law.”

This logic is based on the one-dimensional logic of ontology, with its assumption that the objective, physical status of the human being determines its human personhood and therefore its human rights.

Those who take the teachings of Jesus seriously would not uncritically accept this one-dimensional reasoning, however.

Jesus demonstrated that more that mere existence is needed in order to have the life God intended when he said…

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:21-23 NIV)

To experience human life in all its dimensions one must experience life in relation to God; and even apart from God, we only experience our created life as human beings when we experience it in relationship with each other.  We must be valued by another in order to have value.  A baby that is not nurtured dies.  Our mere existence alone does not give us value: we must also be valued.  That is true beginning at our conception and remains so throughout our existence.  We will find our strongest identity needs fulfilled in our relationship with God; but we also have daily practical needs we depend on others to supply.

Jesus strongly emphasized our inter-connectedness when he taught his followers the importance of forgiveness, but then left it up to them to decide who would be admitted into his kingdom, assigning his followers the responsibility to serve as a virtual gateway to God’s forgiveness in their earthly community - “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19; cf. Matthew 18:15-20).  Jesus wanted his followers to be known for their love for one another.

That we only exist in relationship, and therefore do not have value simply because we exist but because we are also valued may sound oxymoronic, as if the two aspects of value automatically go together.  But this is not so.

Mechanistic processes are not usually quite that preferential.  Natural processes apparently do not expend extraordinary effort to preserve every fertilized human ovum.  Many are lost at various stages after conception: “About 15 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, most of which occur between the 4th and 12th weeks of pregnancy.”  If lost at the ovum level, they might never even be noticed.

All human beings must also accept the reality of separation from their loved ones by death at some point.  As health technology has improved, people are more and more forced into a position traditionally left to God and must make decisions that affect how long they or their loved ones will live.  As the Apostle Paul said, we still await the day when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21).  Death and many other consequences of sin are inevitable and unavoidable.

When we create a law such as the one proposed in Colorado, we are affirming our collective will to so value the independent human status of the fertilized ovum that we are committing ourselves and our collective resources to protecting it and to holding those who have created it accountable for maintaining it.  The Colorado proposal seems to reject the responsibility to make ongoing value judgments and instead attempts to make a once-and-for-all absolute value judgment that will supposedly resolve all those other moral conflicts. 

The proposed Colorado law makes heroic efforts to save every unborn human obligatory.  There is no other way to avoid this conclusion because by definition the law takes effect at the moment of conception, when the number of cells is at the lowest possible level.  Could babies with gross deformities that were not predicted before conception be aborted if they were identified shortly after conception?  Not if they were defined as human persons and therefore protected by the Colorado constitution.  But to their credit if they approve this amendment, Colorado voters will also be committing themselves to the medical and social services to pay for these lifelong dependent citizens.

Think what it would mean if every fertilized egg is considered a human person even though nobody in particular cares about it.  Society would still have an obligation to protect every fertilized egg as long as possible.  In this scenario every unused egg conceived for in vitro fertilization would be required to be preserved forever.  Fertilized embryos can be stored in liquid nitrogen for indefinite periods of time. People who recognize the absurdity of creating this legal responsibility most likely recognize that some specific humans must also value those eggs, or at least should value those eggs if they must be preserved.

However, by all accounts this proposed Colorado law appears to require the absurd conclusion that all fertilized eggs are human persons and therefore must be guaranteed full constitutional rights.  That means any fertilized ovums left over after the in vitro fertilization process would still be considered human beings under the Colorado constitution.

There are other possible complications of this Colorado law including creating conflicts of interest between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn fetus:

Treating the fetus as a legal entity separate from the pregnant woman creates the potential for an adversarial relationship between the woman’s health needs and those of her developing fetus and further confuses the issues of the health care provider’s duty to his or her “patient”…. (Smock, et.al., 2003)

Some are also concerned that certain types of IUD birth control devices might become illegal since they may prevent implantation of the fertilized cell in the uterus after conception.  That could be seen as a kind of murder if the fertilized cell is defined as a human person, for as one anti-abortionist put it, “Most methods of birth control kill babies in the womb by preventing implantation.”

It appears that the main immediate goal of the proposed Colorado law is to legally establish high moral ideals; but it also appears that the far-reaching legal consequences of the law have not been well considered or communicated.

The proposed Colorado law will obviously eliminate abortion in Colorado.  But it will also, as we have already seen, most likely create the requirement that all embryos produced by infertile couples during in vitro fertilization will be their responsibility to maintain forever, since these embryos are their offspring and therefore their responsibility.  These embryos will be “people” before the law forever, even though they are contained in freezers. 

Can you imagine the commercial possibilities?  I wonder if anyone has begun locking in patents, copyrights and .com names.  Given that the amendment is presented in an innocuous format completely unrelated to any controversial setting, it has a very good chance of passing simply because those who are not informed on this issue and see the proposal for the first time either on the petition or in the voting booth may not give it much thought and conclude it really does not matter, but must be needed for some good reason.

Considering that this would be a constitutional amendment, and that the future consequences of this law are so likely to be unwelcome and expensive, this proposal really does set a new standard for condensing extremism in a small package.  Hopefully the citizens of Colorado will sincerely and accurately count the cost before they cast their votes on this measure.