See here's a problem

Below you will find two links. The first one is a story that appears from the Associated Press writer Eric Gorski on the recent stem cell research ban being overturned and how the religious community is responding to it. There is a divide that is occurring on the issue. But the story indicates that proponents of the reversal of the ban want to make sure the embryos "were not created for the research, nor bought and sold."

click here for Eric Gorski

The next link appears at OneNewsNow and briefly tells of women who are selling their eggs to fertilization organizations in order to make ends meet.

click here

See here's the problem. Leaving aside the religious aspects of the stories for the moment but only for the moment. Where will the researchers get the embryos from? The story said that they were embryos that were going to be discarded in any case. Who is going to discard them? Will it be fertility organizations? Embryos that were produced from the sold eggs of these women as well as the contribution from the males? I'm inclined to think that will at least be apart of it. So ethically speaking I wonder how those of the community of faith that "oppose the buying and selling" of embryos used in research to relieve human suffering divorce their ideas from this one?

Ethics are tough and ethical questions do not stand alone so where can a person turn to find some clarity on such diverse and difficult issues? Picking up the religious argument again. Since the first article enlisted differing faith traditions to illustrate the "religious divide" over the issue of stem cell research we are well within our rights, for clarity, to ask those same faith traditions from what basis are they arguing for their position on the issue. Do they come from a position of truth as defined by humanity? Or do they come from a position of truth from some outside source? i.e. The Revealed Word of God = The Bible.

I would give those faith traditions the benefit of the doubt and say that they would in some way connect to the Bible. As a matter of fact simple google searches would suffice to show us that is indeed the case. If we, however, dig a bit deeper we would find that those faith traditions involved in the article do not hold the Bible as the inerrant Word of God as defined from the beginning of church history with a special emphasis upon the reformation. For example the United Church of Christ in a forum on the Inerrancy of Scripture flatly states that the Bible is not inerrant. It isn't the official Denominational Faith Statement but then again the official Faith Statement doesn't say anything about the Bible. So where do they find the authority to answer the ethical issues involved? And what will those "christians" from the UCC do when they discover that embryos are being sold for research purposes. Well they were sold for fertilization purposes not for research but that is simply an intellectual excuse. If you cannot see the connection you need a dose of intellectual honesty with yourself. I have a hunch that the intellectual dishonesty will continue and that Truth will not matter.