week three

   Overall, the gestalt set forth in Callahan’s Demythologizing the Stem Cell Juggernaut is one built on fair considerations of a multitude of variables implicated in the discourse at present. The weakness of the gestalt is in the lack of consistently applying attention to the logic that underpins each belief. For instance, Callahan believes that the argument “nothing is lost” is weak because it presumes that it is legitimate to have spare embryos. Here, Callahan is taking issue with the origin of this legitimacy, saying that it is a public health problem that has been accommodated medically. He asserts the remedy of the underlying cause by suggesting to address the social and economic context responsible for this problem. I find this argument to be naive at best, it assumes the illegitimacy of a practice based on the allusion to intractable hypothetical quasi-fascist alternatives. Callahan forgets to account for the uncertainty of IVF’s, if abortion is morally acceptable because it is predicated on the certainty that it will save a mother from death, shouldn’t the uncertainty of the success of an embryo in IVF make it inherently immoral? Ironically, it is easy for Callahan to support abortion regardless of the benefit it provides the woman, where is his argument for social and economic reform as a primary objective?   

   In continuation, the profusion of reasons Callahan utilizes to educe his gestalt largely serve to beguile the “juggernaut”. His three considerations in weighing a moral obligation are all fallacious to some degree.

   To begin, the first- that there is a common misimpression that stem cell research is the only methodology applicable to various diseases, is really a mischaracterization. We have been treating these diseases for years with alternative methods, the disproportionate media attention played to stem cell research has slowly degraded since Callahan wrote Demythologizing the Stem Cell Juggernaut. In science, it is often necessary for some amount of hype to be generated about a line of inquiry while it is established, while this may engender negative practices and misinformation, it is nonetheless necessary. The omission of one line of inquiry will not constitute a moral failure for those whose interests are weighed towards the defense of the embryo, it will however be a failure of the philosophy of science.

  Moving on to the second- the question of what might else be done with the money used to fund stem cell research that is more constructive, is a concern that can be broached about many more topics. It is a matter of personal interest which public vocation one chooses to divest or restructure. Further, this concern isn’t a criticism on any of the commercial biotech ventures.  

   Finally, the third- that there are more pressing issues to attend to than those of the present and future that are afflicted by illness; is a reformulation of the second. For Callahan, the only figure that seems to matter as far as medical progress and medical need are concerned is the national life expectancy. Callahan doesn’t draw the conclusion that research into diseases of age may ever illuminate our general understanding of biology. Callahan ascribes a lower research priority onto diseases of old age because he is comfortable with the idea of conditionally dehumanizing- to a degree, humans that can’t provide for themselves: that are going to die anyway.