The dignity of human life

Dear Friend,

There is a draft bill which is today circulating in the British House of Commons which has the potential to destroy the most important aspect of planet earth – human life itself. This bill, entitled the Human Tissue and Embryos draft bill authorizes British scientists to genetically modify live human embryos with the DNA of other organisms. All persons concerned in any way with human life must be outraged at such a blatant disregard for humanity and indeed for life itself.

By definition, an embryo is an egg which is fertilized. Fertilization of a human egg endows the embryo with all of its potential genetic attributes; each and every aspect of the fully developed human being is contained within this fertilized egg. It is at the point of fertilization that human life must begin. This rule applies to all mammalian life – not only humans. Can one imagine a geneticist proclaiming that the fertilized fish embryo in his laboratory is in fact a giraffe? Of course this would be called silly and foolish – giraffes do not emanate from fish embryos. Neither do anything but human beings emanate from human embryos. To experiment with live human embryos in such a fashion is to disregard the very tenet that human life is special and deserves the utmost care and respect.

One would think that the British of all peoples, would understand this fact. Many of the world’s great scientific and social discoveries emanated from Great Britain. Britain is the land of William Wilberforce who ended slavery in the United Kingdom and whose influence brought abolition to the United States as well. Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered the very foundational laws of our physical world was British and held the utmost respect for human life.

Proponents of this bill rightly claim that the bill itself contains prohibitions for the implantation of modified embryos into human females. However, any thoughtful person can see that this is a vain and transparent attempt to appease those concerned with human dignity and life in the hope that so-called “successful” experiments will enable scientists to persuade the British government and people to disregard these clauses at some later date.

This sort of dangerous experimentation is simply not necessary. Whatever gene expressions the British are allegedly seeking can be brought about in other ways which do not degrade human life and set the worth of humankind at the level of a laboratory experiment.

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of propaganda described the medical experiments of the Nazis in the following statement, “Out starting point is not the individual, and we do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked…our objectives are entirely different: we must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.”[1] Without a defined reverence for life, this is where mankind must end: the selfish pursuit of desire regardless of the temporal or eternal consequences. Reverence for life can and MUST be the beginning point for all human research, whether clinical, theoretical or genetic.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the physician-missionary who spent his life serving the people of Africa stated,

“Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits of our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us."[2]

Contrast Dr. Schweitzer’s thoughts with those of the Cambodian despot, Pol Pot who murdered millions of his own people in the name of “progress”: “Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies.”

Humanity is already seeing the result of this sort of thinking in the euthanasia and infanticide movements in Europe and in the abortion industry of America. The degradation of human life is also manifesting itself in the form of sexual enslavement of thousands of Russian, Chinese, and Korean girls who are being sold to western “husbands” who treat them as property. Can we not see the ultimate end of this sort of thinking?

The dignity of human life is the gravus eventum of our day. Immigration is not, terrorism is not, neither is economic prosperity, for if we cannot as a race understand the dignity of human life, then no other issue will be of any consequence. Thoughtful persons of every society – not scientists alone, must ensure the proper place for human scientific research.

C. S. Lewis summed up this idea perfectly, when he wrote,

“Who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed?”[3]

Those who value humanity, peace, love and dignity must rise up and stop this madness before it metastasizes into an uncontrollable disease which dooms our entire race. I urge you to avail yourselves of every peaceful avenue to forbid the practice of live human embryonic experimentation.

---

[1] United States Holocaust memorial museum online, “deadly medicine, creating the master race”.

[2] Schweitzer, Albert, Reverence for life, edited by Thomas Keirnan, Philosophical Library. No publisher listed.

[3] Lewis, C.S. A Preface to Paradise Lost: Being the Ballard Matthews Lectures Delivered at University College, North Wales, 1941,