In Science, Should We Do All the Things We Can?

A response to StatePaper's stories on UNMC research

As I read StatePaper's two-part story on Dr. Howard Gendelman's research, I found myself getting caught up in the potential promise of this research for healing terrible diseases.

I have a limitless sense of awe and wonder for the ingenuity of the human mind to overcome obstacles and achieve extraordinary accomplishments. Like most people, I have witnessed the ravages of disease among family and friends and have an eager sense of hope that one day mankind will overcome these diseases. But as with any research that involves or utilizes human subjects, prudence and justice require going beyond the question of, "Can we do it?" to "Should we do it?"

Tragically, history has already shown that we can achieve rapid and astonishing remedies and treatments for terrible diseases by experimenting on non-consenting adults. But our society has rightly condemned such research as violating intrinsic human dignity and the rights afforded citizens by the U.S. Constitution. Clearly our society has decided that there are some things we should not do even when many lives could be saved or made better by doing it. Such prohibition is recognized as basic justice, not as a violation of academic freedom.

During the past year, the University of Nebraska Medical Center has done a masterful job of diverting the public discussion over aborted fetal tissue research away from the moral dimensions of Dr. Gendelman's research. It has done so by keeping the public focused on the devastation of certain diseases and the wonderful cures/treatments that may come from this research. But unless we want to repeat the injustices of the past, the first and most important question raised by UNMC's research is this: "Where do we draw the line between what may be done and what should not be done?"

Consider this analogy: Imagine if one year ago it was revealed that UNMC had an ongoing arrangement with the Nebraska Department of Corrections to obtain brain tissue from recently executed criminals (with only the consent of those seeking the person's death). I think it is safe to say that the focus of the subsequent public discussion would not have been on the promise of the research to find cures for terrible diseases. The focus would have correctly been on whether it is right to obtain human tissue in this manner.

Would UNMC have used the same arguments it did with aborted fetal tissue (i.e. executions are legal in Nebraska, it's not a capital punishment issue, it's a research issue, it is not causing additional executions, the bodies would just be buried or cremated anyway, there is no moral complicity with capital punishment)? And would the public (particularly those opposed to capital punishment) accept these arguments in this context? I don't think so.

I very much want to see the day when we have cures to the terrible diseases that afflict our society. And I very much want to see UNMC become a first-tier medical research institution. Any suggestion that those of us who oppose research that involves or is complicit with the destruction of human life are anti-research or anti-UNMC is shameless demagoguery, pure and simple.

However, if either of these important endeavors involves, or is complicit with, the objectification and destruction of human life, the cost is too high. Because although our society may achieve cures for physical maladies, if we violate the sacredness of human life in the process, these temporal achievements will be eviscerated by a diminishment - individually and collectively - of our humanity and our souls.

StatePaper's recent stories on Dr. Howard Gendelman and his research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center: Gendelman Explains Science Behind Fetal-Tissue Research
From a Basement Office to a World-Renowned Research Center