Krusin' the Capitol
By Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse
2004
Week 3
January 24, 2004
Hi –
Cloning is the subject of the week. This essay is an attempt to be accurate
while being concise. Do understand, a complex subject requires much more
detail to be exact.
Bottom line: the bill to ban cloning was one vote short on a procedural
motion. That was a charged moment, but it is not the end of the world for any of
the sides. The debate will continue! We need more info, plus there is no
known threat of anyone planning to do cloning in Nebraska.
Also, the debate is not about what is practical. For example, how would a
ban be enforced? Send police into labs to guess which dishes look bad? It is a
statement on public policy.
Cloning is stripping a female egg of its contents and inserting cells. If
this produces a viable fetus and the subsequent birth of a person it is called
"reproductive." Every senator is opposed to that.
If used for research, the cells grow as they will, come to a problem or a
discovery, and are destroyed. Many oppose creating a cell/life in order to
destroy it and that is the premise of the ban. Others see this as honoring life by
exploring its mysteries. Others …… the list of sides goes on.
There is a third possibility in cloning. The manipulated cell can become a
body part, as a liver or heart. It is clear that is in our future. Using the
person’s own cells will provide an organ for transplant without rejection.
Rejection of "foreign" tissue is the bugaboo of transplants.
The bill prohibits all three by banning use of the female egg for any
manipulation. It does not ban any other kind of cell research, as some charge.
However, it could affect other cell research.
Messing up the debate is a well know organization which I will not name. Its
followers are good people, whom I respect highly. We sometimes disagree, but
I certainly find no fault in them. It is exciting to have so many persons
affirming life. It is time to build on that. They want to reduce abortions.
So do I, passionately.
However, key leadership in the organization plainly lacks integrity. They
would rather use the life issue as a club to beat someone to a political death
than to reduce abortions. I know, because they have tried to recruit me to
destroy the political career of someone who wanted to reduce abortion but was not
"pure." They raise a lot of money this way and ironically will find this
defeat a good way to raise even more funds from the faithful.
The point of this background is that their tactics helped cause the defeat of
the ban. For example, a senator signed on as a sponsor, read more on the
issue, and decided that a blanket ban on research was too heavy. He wondered
about producing critical body parts. How is that destroying?
He expressed his doubts to someone. Organizational leadership phoned
contacts in his church, instructing them to attack him in church on Sunday as
"pro-cloning." They gathered around him and did. He was livid. Other sponsors had
similar doubts and deeply resented the tactics. Votes were lost. (With term
limits, organizations have lost much of their ‘clubbing’ clout, so senators
are more free to think.)
Could we get to the place where we could actually talk about life, its issues
and our questions? That would be a huge step forward for our society.
To look at that third use of cloned cells, cell research is the apparent key
to restored life for many paralyzed citizens. Wouldn’t that be a day for
rejoicing!
The spinal cord of our Son, Doug, is severed between his shoulder blades.
One hope is that a collection of his own cells, inserted in an egg, would begin
cell generation and heal his spinal cord. Like his cut hand will heal. The
spinal cord of a fetus will heal if it is cut. After birth, not. Why? A
great mystery. Inquiring minds want to know. We must train or trick spinal cord
cells into regeneration.
We will in the search learn more about this marvelous creation, our body. We
have already learned secrets we could not have imagined. Life is not
diminished by our discoveries in creation, but rather wonderfully lifted up. Now,
even the cynic has to marvel at creation.
To tie this hope for healing to abortion is outrageous. It is offensive in
the extreme to label Doug and his loved ones as anti-life. We are in a wierd
frustrating scene where all persons around the table celebrate life but are
reduced to shouting at (past) each other. If we could only discuss life our
discussion would lift the value of life. Together, we could reduce the public
devaluation of life – the killing on the street, abuse in the home, putdowns in
public. I dream of it.
One other related matter is the tension between morals and ethics. Almost
every idea has moral implications. However, we try not to legislate religious
morals. We do legislate ethics, as the standards for integrity in public
places. (If someone out there has a concise way of stating the distinction between
morals and ethics I would be most grateful to have it.)
The cloning ban is based on a religious moral principle. As the proponents
state or assume it, it is deeply flawed. Again, talking about this would help,
but we are not allowed to. I am so old I will risk it, though I know those
with clubs will say I am a secularist, unchristian, and anti-life. They
already have.
Moral structures have a hierarchy of values. In seminary classes, we each
created and stated a structure, to have the others punch holes in it.
Fascinating and instructive. The flaw in this structure is to flatly say life is the
highest value. It is not, in any moral hierarchy I know. Dr. Albert
Schweitzer tried to 100 years ago, but it did not hold. Now, in the ban, we are told
that because this cell is life it represents our highest value. We are to
protect it at all costs, human or social.
Life is precious indeed, and is a key part of quite viable hierarchies of
value. All by itself, life is not the top value. We each prove it when we risk
our lives. To risk life is immoral if being alive is the ultimate value. A
fireman could not risk his life to enter a burning building or a police
officer could not put life at risk to arrest a criminal – if life is the highest
value.
If life is the highest value, we must bring our men and women home from Iraq.
They are risking their lives for some good. Whatever the good is, it has to
be of lesser value. To be consistent, if life is the highest value we would
reject the sacrifices of our troops in World War II. If the soldier’s action
was to save life, it would in this premise be moral. But we said we placed
them at risk to protect us from subjugation. If they had not risked their lives
I am sure we would be in a dictatorship. But alive. With a heartbeat, our
"highest value" intact. Breathing is not our highest value. Patrick Henry
summarized it plainly: "Give me liberty or give me death."
I would have given my life in the crash event if there was some way it would
have protected Doug from being paralyzed. In a second. You have your
illustrations. I went to ten hours of Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations this past
weekend. Illustrations from his life and times abound. Several thundered at
the audience: "Men and women, black and white, died so that you can vote.
Their blood is in the street, for you. How dare you stay home on election day?"
My dream is that some day we can join voices to celebrate how valuable life
is. To think about the values for which I would risk my life is not a
devaluation of life in any way. It is lifting it up, giving it new meaning. In a
moral structure, life with its attendant values helps define our highest values.
The poet speaks of those "whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their
veins." They are alive. But useless. As we put our lives on the line each of us
enhances value. I dream of the day when we can openly talk about what is
precious in God’s sight, and in ours.
Selah.
Lowen
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