Editorial: Embryos - Nazi reminder

Sydney
2 June 2002

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Editorial: Embryos - Nazi reminder

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Editorial: Embryos - Nazi reminder

A chilling report from Austria about a clinic that has been conducting research on the preserved brains of disabled children experimented on and then killed during World War II serves as more than just a reminder of the inhumanity of the Nazi era.

It also rams home the stark reality of the campaign being waged by some groups to justify the use of embryonic stem cells for research purposes.

The disabled - along with Jews, gypsies and others classified as “undesirable” - were characterised as less-than-human by the Nazis as part of the justification for killing them and using them for research.

Now there is a concerted attempt to dehumanise embryos by categorising embryos as “animals” (see our story page 6).

This is shiver-down-the-spine territory.

Obviously, not everyone accepts the Catholic Church’s position on the very early beginnings of life, choosing, instead, more arbitrary points in the story that is the development of the human embryo.

But we are getting into dangerous territory when we start to dehumanise embryos in this way.

The use of the word “animal” definitely points towards an orchestrated campaign to characterise embryos as less than human.

A distinction has always been drawn between the use of animal and human subjects when it comes to scientific research and the use of “animal” is an attempt to blur this distinction.

We are, of course, mammals, as are all other warm-blooded animals. Indeed, our close genetic kinship with a number of animals has been used as an argument for treating them more humanely.

So it is pretty worrying to see this kinship being used as an argument for less, not more, humane treatment of human embryos.

It takes an imaginative leap to see the collection of cells that is the embryo at a few days old as a full human being, but consider this - the DNA of the embryo is identical to that of the full-grown adult it will become. Nor will it vary one iota during that person’s entire sojourn on earth.

It is worth bearing this in mind when getting into arguments about whether there are sub-categories of people who are not-quite-human.

As the actions of the Austrian clinic remind us, the world has been taken down this path before.

God forbid that we should be taken there again.