Back in the distant pre-9/11 days of August 2001 I wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune. I wanted to draw people’s attention to one of the great moments of political theater of our generation. The drama took place before the usually staid and often tedious audience of a congressional committee. The actors were Richard M. Doerflinger, one of the sharpest brains in DC and spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and Judy Norsigian, noted or (depending on your point of view) notorious feminist and long-time editor of the best-selling women’s healthcare manual Our Bodies, Ourselves. As I said in the op-ed, which I wrote together with liberal feminist law professor Lori Andrews, to describe Ms. Norsigian as pro-choice would be like calling the Pope a Roman Catholic.

The subject of the hearing was human cloning, and the drama lay here: on point after point, Mr. Doerflinger and Ms. Norsigian kept agreeing. They did not want a cosmetic ban on so-called “reproductive” cloning. They did not want protection for so-called “therapeutic” mass cloning to produce embryo stem cells for experiments. They did not want women’s eggs to be harvested for research and to manufacture medications. They agreed so much that, at one point, Congresswoman DeGette (D-CO) asked Ms. Norsigian how she could possibly be agreeing with pro-lifers against science and reproductive choices.

Judy Norsigian’s response should have been framed in the headline of the next day’s Washington Post. With an expansive gesture, she shot back “but the embryo isn’t nothing, and the pro-choice position does not require it to be.”

So what’s going on?

The press likes to make it easy. Public policy for dummies. The good guys in one corner, the bad guys in the other. And, wherever they can, abortion as the dominant factor in every discussion. President Bush, they tell us, is against cloning because the pro-life movement is against it. Everyone else, they tell us, is in favor. Any evidence to the contrary is suppressed. The Doerflinger-Norsigian hearing was big news. But it spoiled the stereotype. So it was not reported.

So what’s happening on what we tend to call “the progressive left”? There is a fascinating and disturbing gap opening up between people like Senator Kerry, who has emerged as the leading American champion of mass-production experimental cloning and who represent a political and cultural mainstream, and people like Judy Norsigian. He is pro-choice, even if in the anguished, disingenuous way that has been followed by some Catholic politicians. But he is also pro-trust-the scientists, and pro-please-the-biotech-companies. Judy Norsigian is none of these things. We may disagree with her pro-choice abortion views profoundly, but like many on the (other) radical end of the culture she is a person of principle. She thinks ideas are important. She is skeptical of scientists and the biotech business leaders. She is worried about the rise of a new eugenics. And she believes that human nature is something worth fighting for. The dominance of the abortion question in much of our public culture could lead us to lump her together with pro-cloning progressives. Such blind trust in all things science would be misguided.

Listen to these ringing paragraphs:

These technologies are being developed at a frenzied pace. The general public has had little real opportunity to understand and consider their full implications. There are few significant controls over their use.

These conditions leave us vulnerable to being pushed into a new era of eugenic engineering, one in which people quite literally become manufactured artifacts. The implications for individual integrity and autonomy, for family and community life, for social and economic justice and indeed for world peace are chilling. Once humans begin cloning and genetically engineering their children for desired traits we will have crossed a threshold of no return.

I could have written them. C.S. Lewis could have written them. Any thinking conservative Christian could endorse their message and grasp its profound significance. Yet they form the key section of a letter signed by Judy Norsigian and 100 leaders of the pro-choice, “progressive,” community. Some of them wanted a complete cloning ban. They compromised with a demand in the letter for an effective ban on so-called “therapeutic” cloning for five years.

Some in the “progressive” community have been opposed to any research on the embryo. This has long been the position of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a key network of scientists (though they have recently been reconsidering their view). That is not of course because they hold the embryo to be made in the divine image, or to have personhood. They generally see the embryo as deserving of some degree of special respect. They are alarmed by the fact that embryo research will be the bridge to changes in human nature itself, through so-called “germline” changes. And they wish to protect women from having their eggs “harvested” for research and to help the biotech companies in their drug manufacture. Some have no problem with using “spare” in vitro embryos, but oppose making embryos just for research.

We need to see that this glass is at least half full. The conscience of the left has preserved much of the concern for the dignity of the individual (and our stewardship of creation) that less conscientious elements on the right have let slip. It is helping to provoke us into a deep discussion of the meaning of technology, and a haunting review of the sad story of eugenics. For this we thank our feminist and environmentalist friends.

In Francis Schaeffer’s terms, this may not be “exhaustive truth,” but it is certainly “true truth.” We embrace our co-belligerents for the truth that we share with them.

Cloning will turn the women of the developing world into a human egg factory

In her recent Christian Century article, Price to Pay, Professor Amy Laura Hall argues that the debate over embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR) must be considered apart from prior debates on abortion. The issue must be framed much more broadly in order to fully understand what is at stake.

Hall points out that “endorsing ESCR means endorsing an elaborate, systematic, routine industry of embryo production and destruction, an industry not likely to limit itself to therapies for chronic disease.”

“Some feminists who have no problem with the creation of research use of ‘excess’ IVF embryos adamantly oppose ‘therapeutic’ cloning for ESCR. Why? Ova. The intricate work of ‘therapeutic’ cloning will require not only millions of dollars but thousands of eggs.”

Professor Hall sees the true bottom line that does not make it into most public discussions on this issue: who pays the greatest price?

“This brings me to what I consider to be the most compelling reason to oppose ESCR. With other feminists, I believe that we must consider the likelihood a) that countries with the less stringent guidelines for ova donation will proceed more efficiently with research; b) that countries in the one-third world will likely benefit from research using ill-gotten gametes; and c) that advocates for ESCR will argue that, for the sake of justice, the U.S. needs to implement more liberal guidelines for gamete procurement so as to avoid the injustice inherent in situation b).

The guidelines by which research groups in the U.S. have had to proceed were developed to protect vulnerable populations in the U.S. from one of the most intimate forms of exploitation. Relatively privileged Christians in the U.S. must consider the likelihood that the procurement of requisite ova will follow the predictable patterns of women’s labor in an exploitative global market. A moral analysis of ESCR, as it is likely to proceed, therefore require reckoning not only with the lives of those who suffer from juvenile diabetes or Parkinson’s, but also with the specter of women sacrificing their bodily integrity for our sakes.”

The Human Cost of Egg Donation

In recent testimony, one researcher stated that stem cells might be able to provide up to 1.7 million therapies per year. This would require a minimum of 5-8 million human eggs per year - assuming a very optimistically high success rate of 1 stem cell culture out of 3-5 clonal embryos. Where will researchers get these millions of eggs? >From women in this country or abroad, and it is highly likely that many of these women will have to become repeat donors. Egg donation can have significant health impacts on women.

Of particular concern are (1) the super-ovulating drugs that women are given in order to provide the eggs for embryo cloning, (2) numerous hormone treatments given to ease egg extraction, and (3) the extraction process itself. Risks to women from egg donation include a potential link to ovarian cysts and cancers, severe pelvic pain, rupture of the ovaries, bleeding into the abdominal cavity, acute respiratory distress, pulmonary embolism, and possible negative effects on future fertility.

Most women who are lured into this process are economically disenfranchised and perform this operation because they are in financial need and seek payment for their eggs. These “coerced” women, therefore, are in a poor position to give their informed consent and accurately assess the impacts of these procedures on their short and long term health. Given this scenario, there must be federal legislation prohibiting the sale of human eggs and monitoring the health impacts of egg donation prior to any approval for research embryo cloning.

Americans to Ban Cloning

"The embryo isn't nothing and the pro-choice position does not require it to be."

Judy Norsigian

"While stem-cell research and cloning may be separated in politics, they're entwined in science."

Wired Magazine
August 18, 2004

Responses to: tothesource Readers Demand Retraction!

In truth, both your analysis and Ms. Allen's are shallow and overly influenced by the secularist thinking currently regnant in constitutional law. I would suggest the following article as a counterweight, and perhaps that it would be worth your while to ask Dr. Munoz to write a piece for you on the subject. - Rev R. H.
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0312/articles/munoz.html

I'm amazed at the vitriol directed against Charlotte Allen just for stating that "the Constitution requires separation of church and state." That Americans would slam her for this reading of the 1st amendment when she is supportive of religion in public life seems...
1. Ignorant: The first letter tothesource quoted called Charlotte a 'Sir' which makes me question the reader's intelligence; not to mention the fact that the reader(and others mentioned) didn't bother to read the entire constitution including its amendments.
2. Intolerant: The tone of letters quoted sounded more like Inquisitors preparing for an auto de fey than that of tolerant, fair-minded, educated Americans.

Thank-you to tothesource for their response to this hostility and its balanced treatment of this implied 'separation'. - M. K.

Bravo. As a pastor and attorney, I found your discussion to be one of the better treatments of this important, emotionally-charged issue. Your principle-centered Christian perspective is refreshing. Thanks for providing an integrity forum. - B. H.

Nice try but you're still not quite there. Your proposed clarification stands the intention of the founders squarely on its head. Here's what you should have proposed and why: The U.S. Constitution does insist upon a separation: the separation of state from church. Their intent was to get the state out of the business of establishing and regulating and coloring religious practice. It was never their intent to remove religious influence from government. They not only wanted citizens to be free to express their religious beliefs, they expected them to do so and to think and act on that basis. They never intended there to be a break between church and state, they merely intended that the flow of influence be uni-directional, that of a Christian church keeping a Christian government functioning properly in a Christian society. Don't forget that non-sectarian does not equate to non-Christian! - J. M.

May I suggest that your clarification of the First Amendment might be better stated that the separation required is STATE from CHURCH rather than church from state. The Constitution is a directive to the governing processes of the United States of America, therefore the state is required to be separate from the church, not vice versa. Just a thought. - M. L.

You have correctly pointed out that most of the original 13 states had established state churches and continued to have them for many years after the adoption of the Constitution. You are also correct that the founders did not want a national church, but certainly did nothing to interfere with the states having established churches. I can't understand how anyone could say the founders believed in the separation of church and state in view of the historical facts. - C. W.

Amen to Charlotte. As a history major, a constitutional purist and a minister, it is refreshing to see someone who actually understands not on the words of the constitution, but the meaning behind them. You go girl! - J. K.

My guess is that many Tothesource subscribers didn't read past that first sentence ... and they may read the Constitution with the same lack of attention. I wonder if they read Scripture in the same way, starting with presuppositions and always finding what they always expect to find. I, for one, am pleased to learn that Charlotte Allen stands by what she wrote rather than what some readers believe she said! Or maybe they are not actually readers? I don't expect everyone to agree with Ms Allen, nor anyone (including me). But I think it's only fair that we respond to what she actually said rather than misquotations or misinterpretations of what she said. - anon.

Ms. Allen was quite clear. Why the fuss? Do many of your readers not read correctly, or do they not think? This is ridiculous. I am glad she did not retract her statement. Those who asked for it are perilously close to wanting a censured state. - M. F.

I think Charlotte is all wet. Maybe she doesn't know the difference between explicit and implicit... - P. L.

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