Embryonic Stem Cells: One Christian’s Point of View

Missouri voters have been asked to accept or reject Amendment 2, which would build protection into the state constitution for all forms of stem cell research that are legal under federal law.

On both the surface and in the details, this proposal strikes me as imminently reasonable and rational: It’s about keeping legal in Missouri what’s legal elsewhere in the United States.

Granted, I have a personal interest in the matter, which was probably best summarized in a letter I co-authored with my wife, subsequently published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 20. As we explained there: “A family friend has Parkinson's disease. Our only child has Tourette's Syndrome. Both have suffered pain and endured compromises to the quality of their lives. In turn, we know Parkinson's is often cited as a disease that embryonic stem cell research could help us better understand and treat. Tourette's could be another, since it is believed to be the neuro-chemical opposite of Parkinson's.”

But even if I did not have a personal interest in this issue, I would feel the same way, because once again, I think Amendment 2 is a rational proposal. And despite all the times I’ve acted irrationally in my 41 years on this planet, I know enough to know just how critical rational thought is to our democracy.

For that reason, I took a step back recently and attempted to apply rational thought to the arguments of some of the people who oppose Amendment 2, in particular, those who oppose it on the basis of their Christianity.

These opponents tend to believe that human life starts at the precise moment of conception – generally defined as what happens when a human sperm fertilizes a human egg – and they base that belief on their understanding of the Bible.

As a child and teenager, I was an ardent student of that Bible, and while I don’t study its pages as much today as I did previously, I still consider myself a Christian and a reasonably well-informed (albeit still imperfect) one.

As such, I have not yet found in the words of Christ any comment, direct or indirect, that can be applied to this issue. What’s more, when I ask other Christians to identify what Christ said that might be applicable, they refer instead to three passages from the Old Testament.

Granted, we could pause here to argue that Christ transcends the Old Testament – which is something that He effectively told us – and for that reason, His followers should exercise caution when they use Old Testament passages to justify their beliefs. But for the purposes of this exercise, I decided to table that reservation, and look more closely at the three Old Testament passages in question. (Note: In the quotes that follow, I rely on the Bible’s New International Version, commonly abbreviated as NIV).

“Surely, I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

Recognizing sin as a uniquely human quality, some Christians read this passage and conclude that, for the author, David, to have been sinful from the time his mother conceived him, he must have been human from the time his mother conceived him. As always, context is important. According to the NIV, David expressed the words of this Psalm when “the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.” That context suggests David’s words in this Psalm are derived from remorse, uttered as an acknowledgement of the thoroughness of his own sinful nature, not as a universal edict on when human life begins.

“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)

Once again, context is important. These words were spoken by God to Jeremiah about Jeremiah, not about the entire human race. If these words were applicable to all of us, we would all be “prophets to the nations” – and that’s a stretch, even for the most devout among us.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

More than the other two, this passage holds promise as a universal statement. And like the other two, this passage focuses on defining human life inside the mother, inside the womb. In contrast, modern embryonic stem cell research is conducted using cells in a sterile dish, in a lab, outside the womb.

Yes, some Christians will use these passages to argue against abortion, and that’s a debate we can take up another day. But here, in the context of this issue, of Amendment 2, I think it’s important to acknowledge that there is a critical difference, a clear separation of issues between what occurs in the womb and what occurs outside the womb. That distinction is even more robust when we recognize that one major form of embryonic stem cell research (somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT) does not use eggs fertilized by sperm, and the other form (using embryos created by in vitro fertilization) is limited by Amendment 2, which prohibits the use of a sperm and egg to create a human embryo solely for the purpose of stem cell research.

Now, to be perfectly fair to those who oppose Amendment 2 on religious grounds, I should acknowledge that all of the Old Testament passages cited above were composed in a day and age well before modern scientific advances. That likely means the human scribes of these Old Testament passages could not comprehend cells, much less a world where cells existed outside the womb. And yet, many of the same people who believe in the God of the Christian Bible also believe He inspired the human scribes of the Bible. They further believe God is all knowing, seeing all things past, present, and future. With that capacity, surely He could have – even through the hands of imperfect human scribes – anticipated and spoken clearly to us about the building blocks of life outside the womb. But he did not – and I, for one, believe that omission was intentional.

In closing, to those Christians who are considering a “no” vote on Amendment 2, I respectfully ask them to go back and consider our friend and our son, referenced at the outset of this exposition. Both of those people deserve hope. They deserve the sincere, legal, ethical efforts of scientists using every God-given talent they can to find cures to ailments like Parkinson’s and Tourette’s. And why do they deserve this? Because, as my wife and I wrote in our letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, our friend and our son are “incredible, inspiring, and thoroughly loved human beings,” while “cells in a lab dish are not” – a truth acknowledged not only by us, but by former U.S. Senator Jack Danforth and many other Christians who also support Amendment 2.