Slipping Down the Dark Road of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research

An Interview with Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., was trained as a neuroscientist at Yale University. After finishing his doctoral work, he worked for Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He studied for the priesthood in Rome, where he focused on bioethics and dogmatic theology. Father Pacholczyk is now director of education and a staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Walter Camier of Crusade Magazine interviewed Father Pacholczyk.

Crusade: What do you say to those who claim the embryos used by scientist are really not human?

Father Pacholczyk: One example I use a lot when giving testimony before lawmakers involves a 1940 American law protecting the bald eagle. The law states that if you come across a bald eagle’s nest containing eggs and you decide to destroy one of those eggs, you suffer the very same sanctions and penalties as if you had shot an adult bald eagle out of the air. What is so special about that bald eagle’s egg? What is inside that egg? The answer is very simple. It is an embryonic eagle. It is the very same creature that flies gloriously in the sky. Even an atheist can appreciate the cogency of such a law. We are eager to protect all sorts of animal life.

Yet when it comes to our own humble embryonic origins as humans, we go through sophisticated mental gymnastics to tell ourselves that we were never embryos. We are all too willing to sacrifice young humans on the altar of stem-cell research. There is a profound double standard here that people really need to assess and confront.
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