Dr. Chadwick Urges Ethical Considerations in ‘Seductive Genetic Revolution’

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Dr. Chadwick Urges Ethical Considerations in ‘Seductive Genetic Revolution’

By Dennis Durband, Editor
September 14, 2005

The world’s scientific community is absorbed in a seductive genetic revolution. Mankind is tapping into a new realm of biomedicine, and the jury is still out on whether or not he will do so ethically. After all, the greatest evil is sometimes done supposedly for the good of mankind.

Scientists and people suffering from harsh diseases are pushing for embryonic stem cell research. Others are advocating for sex selection and “designer babies.” Man is on the precipice of grand new scientific capabilities requiring – and not always getting – ethical considerations.

When Jacque Chadwick was in medical school, the word “genomics” was not in the vocabulary. Starting in 1988, the Human Genome Project located and identified all human genes. Phoenix is now the site of the taxpayer-created nonprofit Translational Genomics Research Institute:

The mapping of the human genome is only the first step. Researchers have yet to translate the variations in human genes that explain disease progression and resistance to therapy and why some individuals encounter debilitating diseases and others live healthy lives. Although all the puzzle pieces of our genetic make-up have been identified, scientists and clinicians now have the formidable task of interpreting how they fit together in order to apply the genome map to patient care.

Dr. Jeffrey Trent is the mastermind behind TGEN, and one can hope that his Judeo-Christian value system will embed a healthy respect for life throughout the institute's culture.

Ethical considerations are not new to the scientific community. Better baby contests go back to 1908. People were asking serious questions in the 1920s with the advent of the eugenics movement. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it would be better for all the world if society could prevent the unfit from being born. Then state laws cropped up requiring mandatory sterilization. Animal life was better respected than human life.

In our own era, James Watson, who discovered DNA, supported the killing of a child to spare it from misery and suffering. Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorian began murdering depressed people, some terminally ill and some not.

Today, adult stem cells are being used in the treatment of 65 diseases. Leftists are clamoring not only for embryonic stem cell research but for federal funding of it.

Chadwick, associate vice-president for Health Sciences & Vice Dean at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, said at last weekend’s Arizona Right to Life state conference, “The entire field of medicine is being revolutionized. I will not practice medicine in two years or five years the way I do now.” She fears that ethics are being sacrificed in the blind rush to cure disease.

“Why the interest in embryonic stem cell source?” Dr. Chadwick asks. “Ethical problems arise. The greatest evil is sometimes done when saying it was for the good of mankind. The private sector won’t go there because it does not see the economic need to go there. My biggest concern is that embryonic stem cells turn into tumors and cancers and they are so uncontrollable. It raises the ethical question of when does life begin? The textbook says at fertilization; that debate is over. The question now has become what is a person? If it’s not a person, what else would this seven-day old blastocyst be?”

Embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of human embryos. Adult stem cells do not.

Scientists have already cannibalized humans in the treatment of disease. Dr. Chadwick wonders if there will be an increased intolerance against allowing imperfect children to be born. Will every pregnancy one day be tested for genetic components? Will the flawed unborn be discarded on the altar of abortion?

“The new battleground of bioethics is about what it means to be human,” Dr. Chadwick said. “Many of us are not engaging because it is so hard to understand.”

Chadwick cites, “The coming possibility of eugenics, sex selection, treatment selection and screening of imperfections. There are tough, tough bioethical determinations to be made. We all have ethical filters that we process these things through. We must engage in public debate on what we will allow. We must recognize there is a place where God acts alone outside of human control. Legislation is being considered and we must weigh in.”

Dr. Chadwick’s ethical concerns are not being shared universally in the scientific community.

“My fear is that this culture is going to take an unethical direction,” she said. “Are we diminishing human life and depriving it of value? It all gets back to how far we should go and not how far we can go. I am not hearing much in the way of ethics in the medical arena. Everybody does ‘what we can do.’ Everybody just wants to cure diseases.”

Now days, Dr. Chadwick makes her “rounds” informing the pro-life community about the science of this revolution and urges people to engage in the debate against the seduction to destroy human life for biomedical expediency. In man’s quest to manipulate and manage life, she asks how far we should go. She has a pretty good idea -- an ethical one that respects human life.