Dave Andrusko has a column on the National Right to Life website responding to Michael D. Kerlin’s op-ed for Newsday offering a “spiritual” rationale for embryonic stem cell research (he is specifically talking about the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act to expand federal funding for ESC research). Things like this always make me queasy because they get the teachings and intentions of Christ totally out of whack. This guy uses the predictable reasoning that Jesus loved and healed the sick and the dying, therefore he obviously would be in favor of sacrificing the lives of nascent human beings in order to heal people today.

“America today is full of blind men and Lazaruses who scientists believe could benefit from stem cell research – people suffering and dying from cancer, spinal-cord injuries, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease and other ailments,” Kerlin writes. “Yet we risk turning our backs on them. In the same way that Jesus loved sick and dying strangers, imagine loving strangers with such incurable diseases in the same way that you love your closest friends and family. Then imagine not doing everything in your power to save them.”

His basic rationalization is the same argument we hear over and over again: sure these embryos may be human lives, but they are going to die anyway, so we may as well get some use out of them. After all, aren’t we killing in order to live?

Yes it is good to seek cures relieve suffering, but it must always be kept in line with the dignity and sanctity of human life. All life is sacred. And no human life, no matter how small or insignificant should ever be made into an object or a means to an end.