A few days ago my friend called me from jail - March of Dimes Jail & Bail fundraiser, that is. He called me at work asking for some bail money, so I told him to put me down for $10 (I know, big spender, huh?) - but I asked him if the March of Dimes was involved with abortion in any capacity. He said it wasn’t and he wouldn’t be involved with it if they were. I believe he wouldn’t be involved if he knew they were into that kind of stuff.

Today I received my bail bill from March of Dimes, and I decided to google the keywords in my ethical concern. I’m glad I did.

In their policy on restrictions of use for research grants, the March of Dimes’ website states:

MOD policy states that abortion is not the solution to the problem of birth defects.

So far so good!

The MOD has long maintained its neutrality on the issue of abortion.

Wow, that didn’t last long, did it? I object to the idea that anyone can maintain neutrality on the issue of abortion, and the following article explains this objection exactly the way I would (and have in the past), only better - but we’ll get to it in a moment (depending on how fast you read).

Here’s what I was looking for:

Fetal tissue research does not violate this policy if applicable federal regulations are adhered to.

And what are those federal guidelines? There are some rules in place to supposedly keep women from being taken advantage of by research groups desperate for dead babies, but the point is they allow for destructive embryonic research.

In the previously referred-to article entitled Fetal Tissue and Embryo Stem Cell Research: The March of Dimes, NIH, and Alleged Moral Neutrality, Scott Klusendorf of Stand to Reason makes a strong argument about why such “research” is highly unethical and immoral.

Role of the March of Dimes (MOD)
On July 29, 1999, the MOD, along with 124 other organizations, petitioned Congress to allow federal funds for destructive embryo research.(14) (The organization signed a similar letter in 1991 supporting an override of the Bush administration’s ban on federally funded tissue research from elective abortions.) The petition states that embryonic stem cells “have enormous potential for treatment of disease” and that public opinion supports the research. The signers dismiss alternative stem cell research (that which does not involve the destruction of human embryos) as insufficient, noting it would be a “grave mistake” to limit study to that area alone.

The March of Dimes and Moral Neutrality
Throughout the debate over fetal tissue research and ESCR, the March of Dimes has declared itself neutral on the philosophical questions surrounding the abortion controversy.

However, the alleged MOD neutrality is not neutrality at all. The morality of abortion pivots on just one question: Is the fetus (or embryo) a human person? If so, research on human embryos should be conducted within the same guidelines we use for other children who, because of immaturity, cannot consent to treatment themselves. That is to say, the research must personally benefit the embryo and place it at no significant risk. If, on the other hand, embryos are not human persons, killing them for destructive research requires no more justification than pulling a tooth.

By agreeing with the NIH panel that human embryos are fitting subjects for destructive research, the MOD is taking a position that embryos do not deserve the same protections as do toddlers or other human persons. The MOD, for example, would never fund destructive medical research on two-year olds scheduled for execution by a totalitarian regime. Hence, the MOD, in supporting such research on human embryos, is taking a position that embryos are not the moral equivalent of fully human toddlers. This is hardly a neutral position.

Suppose a 19th century medical school delivered this opinion on the issue of slavery: “We take no position on the morality of owning slaves. We are neutral. However, in our quest to cure many diseases, we fund many groups that conduct medical experiments on those African American slaves scheduled for execution. Rest assured: We do not pay money for these groups to kill slaves. They must use private funds for that. We pay only for the beneficial research they conduct after the slave is killed. In fact, we think slaves deserve profound respect. However, they do not carry the same moral status as white people. Once the slaves are executed, it would be morally wrong to let all that tissue go to waste. Remember this: These slaves are going to die anyway and we don’t pay people to kill them. We simply fund the research after the fact.”

Would anyone in America today consider this a “neutral” position on slavery? Clearly, the19th century medical school would be complicit in the deaths of those executed slaves. By funding the research, it would be taking a position that black slaves are the sorts of beings that can be killed and treated as property.(10) The message would be clear: Blacks are not full-fledged members of the human community.

In fact, the NIH guidelines supported by the MOD specifically demean the value of the human embryo. The guidelines tell researchers to assure parents that their “early human embryos…will not survive the experiment, but “will be handled respectfully, as is appropriate for all human tissue used in research.”(15) In short, live human embryos are dismissed as mere tissue to be destroyed for useful cells.

The NIH justifies this destruction in part as a humane alternative to animal research. In fact, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is now paying research labs $250,000 if they will use human embryos for toxicity tests instead of mice.(16) Thanks to the NIH guidelines, the human embryo now ranks lower in status than a laboratory rat.

Reasonable persons should commend the March of Dimes for its laudable work improving the health of babies, preventing birth defects, and reducing infant mortality. These are good and noble actions.

But good deeds do not atone for bad ones. By embracing fetal tissue research and destructive embryo research, the March of Dimes has violated the principle that made it a great organization: its basic commitment to assist the small, weak, and defenseless. Its unfortunate that this great organization would treat the most vulnerable members of the human community, the unborn, as nothing more than disposable instruments to be used for someone else’s benefit.

I will be giving my measly $10 to the local crisis pregnancy center instead. As I was writing this post, I found I was reminding my own sad self of this article from The Holy Observer.

Update: I told the friend who called me for the donation about the March of Dimes funding destructive embryonic research tonight. Just as I figured, he was disappointed that he had put so much time into raising funds that will go to a cause he detests.

Now we know.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2004 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Life, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.