Pro-lifers, be encouraged: yet another Adult Cell-iPSC method

Generally speaking, in my workplace the standard pro-life view isn’t one that is championed or even held in very high regard.  More than that, it’s not very often you hear of a scientist actively seeking ethical alternatives to embryonic stem cell research and then modifying how he does his science based on the more ethical choice.  I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but in recent years, it just seems that ESCR is the only kind of stem cell research that is talked about with much enthusiasm.

More recently however, better methods–both scientifically and morally–are being talked about and gaining some momentum in the discussion, and they do not involve ESCR.  In fact, this new research, I’m happy to say actually is going in my own workplace, right under my nose…or feet anyway.

In a recent article from Penn State Live, the University announced the development of yet another valuable scientific method that utilizes reprogrammed adult somatic cells (induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs).

Here’s an excerpt:

A team of scientists at Penn State, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and other institutions have developed a method for recreating a schizophrenic patient’s own brain cells, which then can be studied safely and effectively in a Petri dish. The method brings researchers a step closer to understanding the biological underpinnings of schizophrenia. The method also is expected to be used to study other mysterious diseases such as autism and bipolar disorder, and the researchers hope that it will open the door to personalized medicine — customized treatments for individual sufferers of a disease based on genetic and cellular information.

The study will be published in a future edition of the journal Nature and will be posted on the journal’s advance online website on April 13.

Gong Chen, an associate professor of biology at Penn State and one of the study’s authors, explained that the team first took samples of skin cells from schizophrenic patients. Then, using molecular-biology techniques, they reprogrammed these original skin cells to become unspecialized or undifferentiated stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). “A pluripotent stem cell is a kind of blank slate,” Chen explained. “During development, such stem cells differentiate into many diverse, specialized cell types, such as a muscle cell, a brain cell, or a blood cell.”

After generating iPSCs from skin cells, the authors cultured them to become brain cells, or neurons. They then compared the neurons derived from schizophrenic patients to the neurons created from the iPSCs of healthy individuals. They found that the neurons generated from schizophrenic patients were, in fact, distinct: compared with healthy neurons, they made fewer connections with each other.

As you can see, one great thing about iPSCs is that they are sourced directly from the patient in question.  In this case, they provide a “model system that allows us to study how antipsychotic drugs work in live, genetically identical neurons from patients with known clinical outcomes.”

This is of course also perfectly safe for the patient, Chen notes:

What’s so exciting about this approach is that we can examine patient-derived neurons that are perhaps equivalent to a particular patient’s own neural cells.  Obviously, we don’t want to remove someone’s brain cells to experiment on, so recreating the patient’s brain cells in a Petri dish is the next best thing for research purposes. Using this method, we can figure out how a particular drug will affect that particular patient’s brain cells, without needing the patient to try the drug, and potentially, to suffer the side effects. The patient can be his or her own guinea pig for the design of his or her own treatment, without having to be experimented on directly.

More information about diseases that could be studied (e.g. autism and bipolar disorder) and further benefits of using these methods can be read in the article.

This is great news for patients and the researchers who study these puzzling neurological disorders.  Even better news, and conspicuous by its absence (or not!) is the fact that we have more evidence for the good science being done using alternatives to ESCR, such as Adult Stem Cells and induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.

That is something that should be encouraging to pro-lifers (and many others as well) and is cause for a little celebration, at least in this blogger’s opinion.

Fallacy of the Beard?

In his book, Defending Life:  A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, Frank Beckwith points out a humorously named, informal logical fallacy committed by some abortion-choicers called the “fallacy of the beard” (also known as the “continuum fallacy” or “fallacy of the heap”).  He describes this fallacy as follows:  “Just because I cannot tell you when stubble ends and a beard begins does not mean that I cannot distinguish bearded faces from clean-shaven ones.”^[1]

So how is this related to the abortion debate?  And more specifically, how is this fallacy committed by some abortion-choicers?

Beckwith cites David Boonin as an example.  Boonin says that the precise moment at which a new human being comes into existence is in dispute.  In his view then, this counts as evidence against the claim that the existence of a human being starts at conception.^[2]

Beckwith handles this very nicely (as follows):

Boonin’s raising of this important epistemological question (When do we know X is an individual organism and its germ cell progenitors cease to be?) does not detract from the claim that a complete and living zygote is a whole human organism.  It may be that one cannot, with confidence, pick out the precise point at which the sperm initially penetrates the ovum and a complete and living zygote is present.  But how does it follow from that acknowledgement of agnosticism that one cannot say that zygote X is a human being?

Quite cleverly (in a classic style found throughout the book), Beckwith then takes this objection and turns it back on the abortion-choicer’s (including Boonin’s) own views on the right to life:

Abortion-choice supporters typically pick out what they consider value-making properties–for example, rationality, having a self-concept, sentience, or organized cortical brain activity (as in the case of Boonin)–that they maintain justify concluding that a being lacking one or all of them does not have a right to life. But it is nearly impossible to pick out at what precise point in a being’s existence it acquires the correct trait, for example, when it becomes rational enough or has a sufficient amount of organized cortical brain activity, to warrant a right to life. But it’s doubtful whether the abortion-choice advocate would abandon her position on those grounds.

Well said.  Anyway, it’s an interesting fallacy to remember the next time you shave.

1. Defending Life, p. 67.
2. Defending Life, p. 66.

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This is another book I haven’t read, and I will not weigh in at all at this point.  But here is someone reliable who has and did.

An Argument against Arguments?

I try not to fall into the trap/cliché of “judging a book by its cover,” but this book has self-refutation literally written all over it.  Take for example, this excerpt from page 12,

There truly is no argument for God that is capable of bearing the weight of his existence.  Things that operate within the realm of human reason bear the fingerprints of human inventors.

Lots of problems with this.

First, that sounds to me like someone giving…wait for it…an argument for God.  Specifically, it sounds like a human inventor who says we in fact can’t make an argument for or about God because He has some sort of “weight” to His existence.  But isn’t there implicit in that statement that an argument for or about God?  So then, if the statement is true, then it is false.  It contradicts itself.  Besides that, shouldn’t red flags be going up whenever someone gives reasons to argue against the use of reason?

Second, though it may be true that we do not have exhaustive knowledge of God, we can still have true knowledge of Him nonetheless.  Is it not possible that God could reveal Himself to us, or is that beyond His ability?  Is it also not possible that God Himself has endowed us with reason to use as a tool to be able to apprehend some truths about Him?  How does the author conclude that reason is merely a human construct?

Third, to say that Christianity is irrational–if by that one means it is truly illogical–does not take the Christian worldview seriously because it ignores the tremendous heritage of thoughtful believers who have answered tough questions like the ones raised in this book (e.g. How is the Christian idea of the atonement logical?).

In my view, the Christian faith is eminently reasonable, and in fact, Christians are instructed in Scripture to give reasons for their faith (1 Peter 3:15).

After browsing through this book a bit further on Amazon and CBD, I’ve seen enough to safely say that it is not on my wishlist.

Apologetics in Your Church

I recently contributed to an essay series on apologetics in your church over at Apologetics315.  Check it out here.

The "D" in the SLED Test

After taking a little time away from the blog to work on some other things, I’d like to take a moment to finish up this series and relate the “D” in the SLED test, which stands for “Degree of Dependency.”

Is the claim that “the fetus cannot survive on its own outside the womb” relevant in the question of whether we can take its life?

The answer is no.

If dependency is the issue, then no baby is safe.  All depend on their mothers for feeding, whether inside the womb or outside.  For that matter, if degree of dependency is relevant, older children are not protected either.  Nor are those physically dependent on dialysis machines or insulin.  These are all examples of valuable human beings who are dependent.

Doesn’t it seem odd to say that we can take the life of the unborn because they are too dependent? Shouldn’t we be saying we should protect the weak, dependent, or vulnerable?

Greg Koukl rightly points out, “If dependency determines worth, then no moral principle protects the weak and vulnerable from the strong and powerful.”^[1]

We already know that the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings.  And we have seen that differences in size, level of development, environment (location), and degree of dependency have no bearing on their value as human beings.  They deserve the same protections that both you and I enjoy.

Armed with this knowledge, may we take action to protect the unborn and cherish them as members of the human family.

1. Source material for this post: Abortion: Only One Question.

The “E” in the SLED test

The third letter in SLED stands for “Environment” (or location).  This simply tells us that changing location (e.g. from inside the womb to outside) is irrelevant when considering the rights of the unborn as human beings.

Consider the following real-life scenario:^[1]

A little girl named Rachel Caruso…was born prematurely at 24 weeks, in the middle of her mother’s second trimester.  On the day of her birth, Rachel weighed 1 pound, 9 ounces, but dropped to just under a pound soon after.  She was so small she could rest in the palm of her daddy’s hand.  She was a tiny, living, human being.  The lunacy of our age is this:  Heroic measures were taken to save her life because she was a vulnerable and valuable human being.  However, if this same little girl–the very same Rachel–was inches away resting inside her mother’s womb, she could be legally destroyed by these same doctors through abortion.

How is this possible?  If it would be homicide to kill this defenseless child outside of the womb, how is it right to kill the same child at the same stage of development inside the womb?  What has changed besides where the child is located?

If changing location has any bearing on our rights as human beings, then what happens when a person travels from home to their job or from the kitchen to the living room?  Do we gain or lose our fundamental rights as human beings based on location?  This is clearly a ridiculous notion.  It is well said that “where you are has no bearing on who you are.”

We are three-quarters of the way through the SLED test, and we have seen that differences in size, level of development, or environment are not morally significant as to justify taking the life of unborn human beings.

Next:  The final letter “D”:  Degree of dependency.

1. Source material for post: Abortion: Only One Question.