05 October 2005

The Stem Cell Debate

Here’s an interesting article: http://www.betterhumans.com/News/4677/Default.aspx

(But a company named Better Humans? I wonder if this isn’t something other than it appears to be. Seems kinda fishy...)
But – regardless of the reality of this particular article, it stands in a line of many hundreds of articles about the real-world, right-now, measurable results that have come from NON-embryonic stem cell research.

I’m struck by how the embryonic stem cell debate rages on in this country. How many real treatments have come from embryonic stem cells? As far as I can tell – zero. How many have come from some other kind of stem cell? (adult, cord blood, placental etc.) The last count I saw was over 200. The promise of stem cell research that present no ethical concerns has just barely been explored but the early signs are incredibly promising – indeed they present all the promise we hear surrounding embryonic stem cells – but they are totally devoid of ethical concerns. So why then, is there this vivid and energetic movement to force the destruction of embryos?

Allow me to get a little weird / spooky here...
Who has heard of Lilith? Depending on the story you hear, Lilith may have been Adam’s first wife, a demon, an angel, a goddess, in some cases the name refers to a type of spirit or demon akin to the incubus and succubus. In most stories, Lilith is associated with eating or killing babies. For example, (a) Lilith might seduce a man, and then eat the child she bears for him. The Adam’s wife Lilith is told to have devoured her child after being cast from Eden and vowing to more of the same as a kind of revenge. More recently, Lilith has come be a symbol of feminism, particularly that brand of feisty feminism that looks on abortion not as a right, but more as an act of sexual defiance.

Have we somehow invited Lilith to live amongst us?

Now I use the term ‘spirit’ loosely. I don’t really have an opinion if Lilith might be an individual spirit, a group/class of spirits, or more of an attitude (as in mean-spirited) - but it would help to explain some things. Why is there this animus that drives Planned Parenthood to actively oppose adoption? Why this push to destroy embryos when ethically pure alternatives are both more developed and more promising (and cheaper)? How can people of otherwise clear thought defend partial birth abortion? It’s as if there is some underlying impulse to destroy as many children as possible. Some unnamed pressure that says we must take every opportunity to kill an infant that we can. Any abortion that could happen, but doesn’t, is a problem.

In most exorcism rites – knowing the spirit’s name is required to cast it out (Christ’s ability to cast a demon out of a mute (where He couldn’t ask the demon its name) was a signal that he was Messiah) . Perhaps this spirit’s name is emblazoned on Tori Amos, Sarah McLaughlin and Indigo Girls tour T-Shirts.

If American Christians were to pray against this spirit by name – what would happen?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow! I NEVER thought of that. The whole lillith thing. Way to hit the point home. I just have one word to say. Snowflakes. Kristin and I have actually researched that as an adotion alternatives. It's worth a look. Great post!

Quinn said...

Thanks Chris, you are so "right-on" with this! Great Post, man!

Chris Skaggs said...

Is Quinn holding a spoon?