Stem Cells, Nazi Germany, & Dr. Dobson
Just do a simple Google search (google & GoogleNews) on this topic, and if you haven't yet heard you will immediately see how Dr. Dobson's statements regarding the relationship between stem cell research and the horrific human experiments the Nazi's conducted within the concentration camps:"But I have to ask this question. In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind"
I am certainly no wholesale defender of Dr. James Dobson--I disagree
strongly with many of his stances on "Christian psychology"--yet on
this point I felt I had to chime in. Frankly I agree. Nevertheless, I
completely understand why so many would be offended. To the ears of
many this could be like saying, "Manufacturing antibiotics is very much
like killing Jews in the concentration camps." I would say that to say
that would be an absolutely horrible statement because it is both
ignorant in its content and disrespectful the millions that suffered
and died at the hands of the Nazi hatred.
But now back to Dobson's statements. The crimes committed against
those in the concentrations camps were much more grotesque. The
perpretrators of the crimes would have a much more difficult time
ignoring the fact that what they were doing was absolutely wrong. Performing medical experiments
on living, non-consenting human beings that always ended in suffering
and many times culminated in the death/murder of the victims.
Nevertheless, the fact remains, both stem cell research and
medical experiments in Nazi Germany involve living, non-consenting
human beings culminating in the death of the victims. The victims differ only in
size, level of development, age, and legal status. Therefore the
ability of the victims of stem cell research to suffer is indeed
limited. I do not deny that (although in the case of abortions many
times this is not the case). The proponents of
stem cell research (note I am speaking of embryonic stem cell research
when I use that term since I have no ethical concern with adult stem
cell research or use) speak only of the potential benefits to those of
us humans who are more developed and have all the power in this
instance. They in essence say "Humans do not count until we say that
they count." It is the same thought process, although easier to hide
from the consciences of those who think it, as the Nazi's had. The
Nazi's had the power to say when a person counted as a person and when
they did not. The Nazi's arbitrarily defined that the Jews and some
other groups did not have the rights of a human being and could be used
as medical experiments, much like rats, only less humane. In the United
States in the Three-fifths compromised, African Americans were defined
by those with more power as being worth only three-fifths of a person
in the eyes of the census and yet at the same time virtually no worth
as human beings when it came to human rights.
Humanity has a horrid history in which those who have the power have
the right to define morality and thereby steal human rights from others
for their own benefit. As I have already said, this has occurred both
in slavery and in Nazi Germany among many other tragic examples. Yet
because benefit trumped morality, those with the power continued to act
in their own best interest at the expense of their victims. Only now, we face a much more insidious situation,
it is hard to look at a fully grown and fully competant Jewish
individual or African American and say, "That's not a person." But it
is easy to contemplate an embryo, something so small that you can't see
it, and consider it a human being. So I fear that this battle will too
be lost because the ruling power in America since Roe v Wade
has managed to look at fetuses, a baby who has not yet left the womb
and wholly based upon its dependence on its mother and its location
within her womb declare that it is not a human if the mother does not
want it to be.
Humanity hates God. We like to be God. The Nazis wanted to be God
over those in the concentration camps deciding when they lived, when
they died, when they ate, when the slept, and when they suffered. In
America, slave owners and those who allowed slavery wanted to be God
and define personhood. In abortion and stem cell research we have
finally reached a more overt version of this blasphemy: The mother's
will defines personhood. Or maybe the scientist's or Congressman's will
defines personhood. In abortion, if the mother decides that the baby in
her womb is not a person, it is not a person. And if the mother decides
that it is, then it is. We don't like the fact that God is the Creator
and the one who has bestowed His image and a soul in all people. Nope,
we want to do that ourselves. So the power of the mother or the doctor
or the scientist over the helpless blastocyst, embryo, or fetus in our
sick and twisted rebellion against God gives that individual the
ability to create life or to destroy it...and we justify it for its
potential benefit toward mankind. A crime different than those
committed by the Nazis in concentration camps in its appearance but no
less horrific and blasphemous in its motive, practice, or outcome.
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Update 8/24: I just stumbled upon this post with a quote by a Jewish relative of some of those murdered in Nazi concentration camps. The National Review article is here.
