Stem cells and life

[Phil Tompkins <philtomp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Listfriends,

I have been sorting out my thoughts on the ethics of embryonic stem
cell research as regards the meaning of the term "life."

In the stem cell controversy two meanings of "life" get confused: 1)
biological life and 2) what I will call lived life.  Biological life
is the coordinated functioning body parts.  Lived life is the series
of actions and experiences of the person whose life it is.

It's lived life that has value and dignity, that we have a right to,
that we share with a loved one.  It is what we fear losing and what
we mourn the taking of.

Biological life is the medium through which lived life happens.
Biological life is mainly valuable not in itself, but because it
supports lived life.

The statements "life begins at conception" and "no one knows when
life begins" are not       inconflictoncethisdistinctionisrecognized.

The life that begins at conception is all biological, as is the life
that persists in an artificially maintained permanent vegetative
state.  Lived life cannot arise before the formation of the brain and
the emergence of the mind.

At the 5-day stage of embryonic development when stem cells are
extracted there is no one whose rights are violated or whose life is
taken, because there is as yet no person, no "who."  That is why
donation to medical research of surplus embryos created in vitro is
something like organ donation, and is not human sacrifice.

Phil Tompkins
dx 1990
Amherst, Massachusetts

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