The Life Challenges Podcast
Faith, Ethics, and Science: The Ethical Dilemmas of Using Fetal Tissue in Research
Could the use of fetal tissue in scientific research challenge your ethical boundaries? Join us to explore the historical and moral complexities surrounding this controversial practice. We unravel the scientific allure of fetal tissue dating back to the late 1970s, discussing how its uncontaminated cell cultures have been pivotal in medical research and vaccine development. Our conversation doesn't shy away from the tough questions, especially from a pro-life Christian perspective, and examines whether this practice inadvertently justifies abortions. We also touch on recent scandals involving corrupted research papers, underscoring the critical need for purity in cell lines to maintain scientific integrity.
This episode dives into the emotional and ethical dilemmas faced by Christians when life-saving treatments involve fetal tissue. We weigh the practical medical needs against the backdrop of Scriptural teachings, challenging listeners to consider their moral consistency. From vaccines to everyday products, our discussion raises important questions about the intersection of faith, ethics, and science. Whether you're grappling with these issues personally or seeking a deeper understanding of the subject, our heartfelt and thought-provoking dialogue aims to provide clarity and balance in this contentious debate.
Could the use of fetal tissue in scientific research challenge your ethical boundaries? Join us to explore the historical and moral complexities surrounding this controversial practice. We unravel the scientific allure of fetal tissue dating back to the late 1970s, discussing how its uncontaminated cell cultures have been pivotal in medical research and vaccine development. Our conversation doesn't shy away from the tough questions, especially from a pro-life Christian perspective, and examines whether this practice inadvertently justifies abortions. We also touch on recent scandals involving corrupted research papers, underscoring the critical need for purity in cell lines to maintain scientific integrity.
This episode dives into the emotional and ethical dilemmas faced by Christians when life-saving treatments involve fetal tissue. We weigh the practical medical needs against the backdrop of Scriptural teachings, challenging listeners to consider their moral consistency. From vaccines to everyday products, our discussion raises important questions about the intersection of faith, ethics, and science. Whether you're grappling with these issues personally or seeking a deeper understanding of the subject, our heartfelt and thought-provoking dialogue aims to provide clarity and balance in this contentious debate.
on today's episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and back to the question of you know how do you feel about this? I think I can say that any Christian, or at least any pro-life Christian, is never going to be happy with the idea of. This is how we got these cells. This is how this is all happening. We're not happy with it. We wish it were different. Right now, science hasn't given us the alternative. Theoretically, someday science might reach the point where we can do everything that fetal cells do with computer modeling. We're definitely not at that point yet, but it would be great if we could.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson, and today we're going to talk about fetal tissue. We're going to talk about how it's used in research and testing and just different aspects and things that, as Christians, we should know and care about. With that topic too, bob, maybe you can get us started here as to why fetal tissue is used in research and testing today.
Speaker 4:Well, my first exposure to the topic actually was in the late 70s when there was some pretty bizarre work being done. I believe it was in Great Britain. They had shown you could have viewed video clips of aborted children that were still alive and they would prick their foot with a pin and the child would recoil and so forth, and then the child eventually died. And so my introduction to the fetal tissue use and so forth was at that level and, of course, immediately incensed, outrage I was. Just I was horrified by what I saw. But actually you got to go back a number of years before that when science was looking for non-contaminated cell cultures to be able to test, because one of the problems, if we take a cell culture from you, it carries with it all of the years of your lifetime of contamination over time. And so when they're trying to work on vaccines and things of that sort, they were always looking for the purest cultures. And so they came upon this idea that we've had aborted children. Okay, well, the problem with spontaneously aborted children is there probably was some sort of abnormality that caused the spontaneous abortion. So then they came on this idea about what if we take cells from an aborted child lung cells or something like that, by their thinking Otherwise. If we don't, those tiny children are basically thrown in the incinerator. And so this predates the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling in the United States, over in Europe and in England in particular. It goes back well, it even predates the 1960s because there was some work with fetal cells before that.
Speaker 4:But when you read about it it's hard to not have it tainted with bias, my bias, but also the bias of who's ever reporting on the historical event. But when you read it you almost get the impression it was a matter of practicality. For example, if you died, you face a decision I'll donate my organs to help others, or I'll donate my body to science. And when they do that, they do all sorts of things with your body, your tissues, the cultures that would come from them, and so you grant all sorts of approvals by doing that.
Speaker 4:And if you had a child that died, they would go to the parent and say would you give approval for it? And so a parent could make that decision. And they say by understanding how this malady affected your child, we might be able to fight others. And you would say okay, so we'll donate his body to science All right. So now you get to an aborted child. So they would go to the mother and say, do we have permission or can we do the testing? And so they would grant it. The problem that we began to have in the pro-life movement is concern that it would suggest to you some sort of not so much vindication but justification or comfort that well, at least somebody benefits from this. We definitely don't want that mentality, but I do believe in the very earliest stages the idea was we have a chance to help countless millions of people with research using purified cell lines.
Speaker 1:And that was going to be actually my follow-up question too, is what is so great about fetal tissue and I think you just kind of touched on it there with the purified cell lines. Can you just kind of maybe expand a little bit on that aspect of it as to why that is such a good thing in some of these research avenues?
Speaker 4:Well, and this opens up a whole different can of worms, because right now, like right now within the last few weeks, the headlines have been talking about corrupted research papers, and so there's always been a high sense of responsibility where you know, so somebody's doing something, they're creating a study, they're working on a vaccine, whatever it is, and they find out that it's been infected with the cell lines like an animal cell line. And so to some degree, people then become concerned about xenotransplantation, like they're getting animal DNA into their system, and the goal always is you want the purest liquid, the purest cell line and everything, so that you have something that you can replicate, you can do the test, because all of these experiments have to be able to be replicated, and you don't want somebody who is using a certain animal cell line and they can replicate it, but then they use a different cell line and it can't be replicated. So you go back to this. Basically, it's kind of the purity yeah and uh.
Speaker 2:It also applies not just with testing but with vaccine production, because in many cases the traditional way of making a vaccine is you use actual cells to produce it. And what Bob was talking about with using animal cells there were some of that. I believe it was the polio vaccine. They were using monkey cells of some sort and they found out that, in a certain percentage of cases, diseases that the monkeys had were showing up in the children who had received the polio vaccine. And again they wanted something that was okay, going to only be a human thing and would not have any risk of carrying any diseases. And so therefore, again they were thinking a child has never actually lived a life, a human child. Well, those cells are going to have the purity that we want. There's not going to be anything danger, know, have the purity that we want. There's not going to be anything dangerously foreign being introduced in that way.
Speaker 1:So what are all the and I think you've talked on some of them, bob, too just the different ethical issues in using fetal tissue.
Speaker 4:Interestingly enough, a lot of times I'll get people, especially older people, when I get talking about just various technological advances. You get at some point someone's going to have the mantra if it weren't for all this technology Scripture doesn't talk about the ability to extract information from the deceased you feel like you're in kind of like open waters. The problem that I think has often happened today is I'm not pleased with like when I hear stories of Planned Parenthood, selling fetal parts for research and that kind of stuff, because it really is monetizing, it's incentivizing almost the market. But just as a general rule, to have used the cell line of a deceased child, whether from a car accident, a drunk driver, an accident at home or even an abortion, I don't find that biblically objectionable. I don't find it rejected in Scripture. Now, that being said, when you begin to start attaching motive to it, like I'm going to abort this child but I'm going to donate its body or something so that other people could benefit, Now I start having trouble with it, because now it begins to start speaking favorably of a dastardly act.
Speaker 4:Now some people would say, well, abortion's a dastardly act, we should never allow anything. But the thing is, is that if you start using that line of thinking. You and I are the products of countless dastardly acts. All of us have benefited in many ways when you get into the cold water experiments, the high altitude experiments that were done by the Nazis during World War II, some of, but they saved American lives and the thing is that doesn't justify what they did, but we are benefactors of that. And of course, offending God happens from building your car to building your house, to getting the groceries you buy. There's all sorts of things that happen along the line that people have done. They took God's name in vain in the production, they lied about things and so forth, and yet in the end we benefit. So you start drawing that kind of line, you're going to have a problem.
Speaker 2:And a lot of the difficulty in discussing this with people often is they've never actually consciously drawn a line. It really is just more a matter of. This makes me really uncomfortable. Therefore it must be wrong. And because they don't have a line, if you're asked okay, what's your limiting principle? What's the point at which you say, okay, this is participating in the evil of the act that produced this thing and this is not participating in the evil of the act? They've given no thought whatsoever to where that line might be, which means that it ends up coming down just to their own personal opinion. I don't like this, which means they're okay with it in other areas that they're not thinking about. That don't make them so uncomfortable, but they're not okay with it in this and therefore it's wrong and everybody should see it the same way.
Speaker 2:And very often, if you're getting into this conversation, that's the real struggle is trying to Get people to realize you're drawing a line and it needs to be a consistent one If you want anybody else to follow along with you, to be convinced of your position. You need to be consistent in how you're doing this and also then to show in a way that this is something that can actually be lived out. If you were to take people's arguments to their logical conclusions, it would be an impossibility. You can't live your life that way.
Speaker 1:So are there reasonable or viable alternatives to using fetal tissue? And I mean, are they as good?
Speaker 4:Well, and that's always the claim.
Speaker 4:Right that is always the claim. That's always the claim. Right, that is always the claim. And I think sometimes, if you just want to avoid controversy, you try to do that. But sometimes there's a different reality at work here, and that is the cell lines from those early aborted fetuses back in the 60s that were used in some vaccine development and so forth. The cell lines have been replicated. I mean you could purchase the cell lines, those cell lines now. I mean I think it's like $475, you can get the cell line, and I think almost any chemist would be able to do it. And so people say, well, can't we do alternatives? Hey, I'm always in favor of sidestepping controversy, but sometimes sidestepping controversy raises new controversies, because when you use some of the alternatives, then there's still questions about are they pure enough, are they good enough? And there's always going to be someone who's going to challenge it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so fetal tissue, then what we're talking about is always a product or it came from an abortion, right?
Speaker 4:But the real issue is, you know, a lot of people would say, well, I feel better if it was a spontaneously aborted child, or something like that. But again, you know, the problem is is what caused the spontaneous abortion? Is there something wrong? And so it compromises the purity of the line.
Speaker 4:I want to go back to something I'd said earlier, and that is you know, when we get thinking about the purity of the line and so forth, there is this temptation to say, well, maybe we shouldn't be involved with this in the first place, and there was a point in my study of these things that that's how I felt. You know, at some point you've got to say maybe we shouldn't be. But the point is that Scripture doesn't condemn it, and I think that's a point that gets lost in the rhetoric. It condemns taking life, but it doesn't condemn what we do with fetal life. Now again, I don't want that taken out as a soundbite, because Christianity has that aggravating feature that society can't regulate, and that is motive. If we're trying to lend some sort of credibility to ending the lives of unborn children, then you don't do any of this stuff To basically say and this is what people have written to me in the past that you have sinned, you have brought destruction, you have brought God's anger on people by saying these things. If you can't support it with Scripture, then all you're doing is expressing an opinion and, quite honestly, if you can't support your opinion with more than just your opinion and the opinion of the other people in your tribe, then it really doesn't mean anything to me.
Speaker 4:The thing is is that there's two problems with Scripture. There's a problem with going contrary to Scripture and then there's a problem with suggesting Scripture saying something it isn't saying. And that's oftentimes when I'm finding what Planned Parenthood is doing in selling fetal tissue in my view is dead wrong. It's clearly wrong because they literally are profiting from a destructive thing and then multiplying that profit from it. That's wrong. But another thing too is that some of these fetal lines that can be used are virtually perpetual. So I would argue with the same thing that I argued during the Bush administration, that when you have existing 30 lines, embryonic stem cell lines, then you use those and don't use anymore, don't extract anymore, just keep replicating those existing lines.
Speaker 4:But see the idealist, those who fit an ideology. They object to even using those existing lines. The abortion that occurred, the lady I would imagine I'm not even sure the lady who had the abortion is even living anymore. That's all gone. And yet somehow we all theoretically carry guilt for doing it and I object to that. No one has proven to me by scripture that that's wrong. They may not feel good about it. I may not even feel good about it, but it doesn't mean that it's wrong.
Speaker 1:So what kind of things are in fetal tissue, or what kind of things do we deal with that have used fetal tissue? I mean, the one that comes to mind right away, of course, is vaccines, Maybe speak a little bit to that but do we encounter it in other areas of our life too?
Speaker 2:Surprisingly many although we would never think about it. I mean, just as an example, with the vaccines. First is that some vaccines are produced using fetal cell lines. Others, like the mRNA vaccines that they used against COVID recently, they didn't need the fetal tissue lines to produce it, but they tested it to see whether it was effective or not using fetal cell lines. So even there there's variety. But there are all sorts of food additives, just common over-the-counter drugs and things like that. One of the first steps in testing is huh, let's see if this thing kills the cells here, because if it does, then you know nobody's going to want to put that in their bodies. If it passes that stage of testing, well, then you can move on to other stages with more complicated human organisms.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I just remember during the whole pandemic, when we were writing on this topic, somebody had sent me kind of a rundown. If you object to a vaccine because it utilized in some way a fetal cell line, then you should be objecting to, I think, tylenol, and you should be objecting to the color red food coloring red, which there goes Skittles. But the point is that, for what Jeff said red food coloring red, which there goes Skittles. But the point is that, for what Jeff said is that, in the interest of public safety, scientists are using these cell lines to make sure that the public will be safe when they needed this medication. And again, and trust me, I've had my backside kicked numerously on this issue and there probably will be others that will do it.
Speaker 4:But it depends sometimes on where you are. If you're in a position to be ideologically pure and perfect on this topic, that means you probably don't get many headaches. You probably don't. You're fine with only blue cakes, no red cakes. Trust me, I get the emails, I get the letters. People think like this so I don't need that. I can do without the color red, that kind of stuff. However, when it's your child that needs the care, when it's your child that needs the treatment, when it's your spouse, when it's you, when you're seeking to do the things of God. But you need this care, this medicine that's been developed. You can be an idealist and say, well, then, I refuse it.
Speaker 4:But again, is your ideology really and truly consistent with Scripture or is it really only really and truly consistent with your notion and your sense of comfort?
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are great questions, because I think you know, when we think too about how we as Christians should feel about this or how we should think about it, there are really strong feelings that can come. I mean when we do think about it. I mean even just at the very beginning of the podcast, bob, when you were talking about a baby getting pricked in the womb, and I mean that just stirs up an emotion in me too, and so it's sometimes so hard to kind of remove or be separated from those feelings.
Speaker 4:Now, all of us here have benefited from pathology studies, we've benefited from autopsies, we have benefited from others who have donated their bodies to science. We, probably knowingly or unknowingly, have taken into our bodies cell lines that have treatment issues and so forth that have been developed from people who have voluntarily, you know, offered their bodies and offered substances for research. And when I had to wrestle through the fetal tissue issue, I asked myself this question what if abortion never was legalized in the world? What if this never happened? But there was a woman in England who needed an abortion for some other reason.
Speaker 4:It was a tension between saving the life of the mother, saving the life of the child, which we have always recognized as one of those uncomfortable situations where you have to make a choice, where, if we take the mother's life, allow the mother to die, the child will not survive. But if we can save one life, we're going to save one life rather than lose two. So a decision is made to have this abortion. It has nothing to do with all this woman's rights and reproductive choice and all that other stuff that's being talked about today. So it's taken that. And then the mother says you know, I'm heartbroken by this, but if we can help other people, you know, with the research that's being done with this, and so she says here you can use this aborted child of mine for science, would we have a problem with it? There may still be a few, but I would guess pretty few.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 4:I think you're going to find that people are going to first of all admire the woman. And the point is that, in all of that consideration, all I'm talking about is I'm messing with your mind. All I'm talking about is how you feel about it. None of this has to do with Scripture. You know. She didn't do anything wrong. It's not contrary to Scripture, but the circumstance was all different and I think people have to be able to step out of the melee on occasion to do that. And again, and I can't say this enough if it becomes a driving force to kill children, I object to it right down to the bone, and we always do. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Speaker 4:And in those instances where we are talking about that, no way. But there are circumstances where it is actually imaginable that somebody had to have an abortion and we could have all benefited from it. And you can with a clear conscience, and I vehemently object to those who want to burden your conscience just because they don't feel good about it.
Speaker 2:Just kind of an illustration that comes to mind of, you know, just trying to take these principles that people think they're arguing for and so it's. You know, it's like I think, just I can't think of many people outside of Jehovah's Witnesses who would have problems with something like organ donation. Somebody dies and you know their organs are still good and somebody who needs that organ is fine. So you know, you have the situation where, let's say, it's your child who needs a new liver and you get the word yeah, unfortunately, you know there's just been a car accident and we have a donor liver for you now and you rejoice, you don't ask any questions. You do that.
Speaker 2:But what if you find out that the reason that that donor liver is available is because some other person drank to the point where he was completely out of control, knew exactly that he was drunk, got behind the wheel without any concern whatsoever for anyone else and went out and started driving and not even just had an accident but actually deliberately drove into the car that killed the person who then provided the liver for transplant? That's obviously a sinful act there. That was evil. Are you then going to say, well, we can't participate in the evil of that act, that person who chose to you know cause this accident through his drunk driving and such. So therefore, no, we're not going to benefit from this organ that has become available.
Speaker 2:I can't think of anybody who would argue that way, and my only point with the illustration is okay, where are you drawing your lines? Okay, because this is obviously a case where that evil has no connection whatsoever to the benefit. That is happening here, and Bob talked absolutely correctly about motive. You know, there is no sense in which, now it would be a little different if you, as the father or mother of the child who needs the organ, goes out and causes the accident in order to make that liver come available. That would be something different, because that brings in the motive again. But it's this thing you've got to, as Bob said, take a step back and say okay, what exactly are we arguing here and what's the principle involved?
Speaker 4:Well, and the terminology that's often used in the literature on this is whether you are an agent in causing the malady. If you are causing abortion so that you can benefit. If you are causing the accident so that you can get the organ stuff like that, clearly crystal clear, consistent with Scripture, that's sin.
Speaker 4:But that's not what we're talking about, and for people to draw that conclusion or draw that parallel is in itself a sin, to burden consciences where they shouldn't be. Now, the other thing to keep in mind here, too is, you know, we sometimes clash principles and applications, and what oftentimes happens in this debate is we take an application and we venerate it to the level of a principle, like, in other words, the application is I shouldn't violate my conscience and so I could never benefit from a vaccine that utilized the stem cell line from an aborted child. I can never do that, and so therefore, it is wrong for all of you to do that you have just taken. That's an example of venerating an application to the level of a principle. In your circumstance, it becomes a problem, and there are circumstances where things were done wrong all the way down the line. But those are applications, and the applications can vary. But again, I would caution people not to burden the consciences of others just because you have a problem with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and back to the question of how you know. How do you feel about this? I mean, I think I can say that any Christian, or at least any pro-life Christian, is never going to be happy with the idea of. This is how we got these cells. This is how this is all happening. We're not happy with it. We wish it were different.
Speaker 2:Right now, science hasn't given us the alternative. Theoretically, someday science might reach the point where we can do everything that fetal cells do with computer modeling. We're definitely not at that point yet, but it would be great if we could, with adult stem cells that will eventually you know, you know be able to produce cell lines that are just as valuable and completely problem free, you know, for testing and production of vaccines and things like that. That'd be wonderful. We would rejoice if that happens because, you know, we'd rather the fetal cell lines not have to be used. But in the meantime we live with the world we're in, and the world we're in says this is, in so many cases, the best option to do the things that need to be done that are actually saving lives and protecting lives, and advancing medical research that is going to get us closer to those ideal situations someday.
Speaker 1:Any other thoughts on the subject at all. We only talked about a lot of different things here. Yeah, and it's a potent.
Speaker 4:it's a controversial topic, and it does not make us any less pro-life. Abortion is a scourge in the land, and people are downright silly to even start believing that it's some sort of expression of women's true freedom. I mean, I think the ability to carry a child is womanhood in its glory, and so we stand by that. But to have then attached a burden to people benefiting from some research on fetal tissue would have gone too far.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you both for the discussion today and if you have any questions on this topic I know we covered a bunch of different things here please reach out to us. You can reach us at lifechallengesus and we always look forward to any questions, comments or feedback, and we look forward to having you back next time. Thanks a lot, bye.
Speaker 3:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at. Thank you, christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.