withallyourmind.net

Jason Fagone, in the Penn State Magazine (my alma mater, I graduated from Penn State Medical School), discusses the work of and interviews Kent Vrana, a brain biochemist and stem-cell expert at Penn State. The article, How Not to Play God, is primarily concerned with the ethical status of Ebryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR). The article, although on the surface attempting to appear neutral, obviously leaned heavily toward allowing, even promoting, ESCR.

Vrana described himself as a church-going Methodist and a “pretty conservative guy” who has voted for Bush in the past two elections. He seems to be an intelligent, thoughtful and articulate man. I continue to be amazed, however, how very intelligent people make very simple mistakes when it comes to thinking about issues of morality and ethics. The author of the article gives Vrana’s view of abortion:

He’s against abortion (though he wouldn’t legislate away a woman’s right to have one).

One would have to know why he is against abortion to make a complete reply to this remark. The article gives Vrana’s reasons why he supports ESCR, but not his views on abortion. Nonetheless, the above stance on abortion is morally incoherent to me. The most important question in the ethics of abortion is, “What is the fetus?” If it is not a human, I’m not sure what grounds one might have to oppose abortion. If the fetus is a human, I’m not sure what grounds one might have to support abortion (except in rare cases). To say that the fetus is human and abortion therefore takes an innocent human life, but that this shouldn’t be illegal, doesn’t make any sense at all.

Vrana gives two reasons why he supports ESCR. I will look at these and respond in my next post.