The Decision to Destroy an Embryo
I was appalled by George Weigel’s “Stem Cells and the Logic of the Nazis” (Commentary, Sept. 3). His view that the “clump of cells” is already a human being is flawed, for without the other human being, the mother, the fetus will not achieve its potential and become such as to be able to live without the intimate support necessary for its survival.
It obviously is true that abortion will terminate what might have become a self-sustaining living organism and so adversely affect it. However, the other human being involved, the mother, may also be adversely affected if she carries this potential human being to term, with problems to her ranging from social and economic ones to physical ones such as illness and even death in a few cases.
Many religionists believe that man was endowed by God with free will. If so, then surely the mother has the right to exercise her free will and do what she perceives as being in her own best interest, even if it terminates the existence of a dependent “clump of cells,” the potential human being.
The decision to abort is that of one individual, involving only one other individual in this dependent situation. To extrapolate such to a state (such as the Nazis) deciding to rid itself of already-existing, cognitive, self-sustaining individuals is sophistry, a confusion on the part of the writer.
STANLEY MARCUS MD
Encino
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Weigel has presented an indisputable and most excellent logical, intellectual, scientific as well as emotional explanation of the stem-cell situation. What I look like now, in 40 years or 40 minutes after I was conceived may be three different appearances with distinct experiences and potentials, but it is, was and always will be me, a human.
Terminating an embryo in utero is clearly a method to relieve or prevent suffering that must be legally preserved. But it is a moral crime that requires recognition as such and this is a fact that must be dealt with by the parents and physician. To destroy an embryo in support of a research project is unsupportable on all and any grounds.
M.H. SUKOFF MD
Tustin
