I'm going to go out on a limb here and discussing politics AND religion in one post.
As I was reading this news article about President Obama overturning Bush's policies on stem cell research (I won't even begin to talk about this... a bit saddened at the moment), I started to think about the future of medicine and science and I need a little help with a moral dilemma.
To the best of my understanding and education, the Catholic Church opposes embryonic stem cell research because it allows for fertilization of an egg, but then after 30 days, all the information is taken from these "cells" and the rest of it is disposed of. Now, as Catholics, we believe that a HUMAN LIFE begins at that moment of conception, so well before these "cells" are disposed of. Thus, using embryos for research is ending hundreds, even thousands of precious lives.
All's fair in the name of science, right? The public's argument (at least that portrayed in the media) is that this is a huge success because the end result is good. Science can advance and in the end more human lives can be saved or the quality of lives can be improved.
Do the ends justify the means? Is it okay for harm to be done if the end result is good? Is it okay to steal food to give it to someone starving? Is it okay to kill babies so Parkinson's patients can someday live an easier life?
So back to my questions - if the Church is against embryonic stem cell research, but the government decides it's okay for medical research to continue this way, and down the road huge medical advancements are achieved through this research....what should we as Catholics do about receiving these treatments that could save us or improve our lives if it came through a terrible means of research? I mean in 10-25-50 years it will be impossible to sort it all out!
Which leads me to another point...what else is out there that we don't know about?
I'm SICK thinking about all of this. Am I being too legalistic or scrupulous? Am I ill-educated?
HELP!!!!!
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