# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2007_S397 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) ) THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS to the European Commission (Paris: January, 2001 [Revised Edi- tion]). (Hereafter Ethical Aspects.) Also see Laura Shanner, Em- bryonic Stem Cell Research: Canadian Policy and Ethical Considerations, A Report for Health Canada, Policy Division, March 31, 2001 (Copyright Laura Shanner, 2001). 39. Konsen, 507. 40. See the “Letters” section of The Lutheran Witness (Novem- ber 2002), 4. 41. Willer, “Threads,” in Human Cloning, 86. 42. “Cloning for Therapeutic Purposes: Ethical and Religious Considerations,” in Human Cloning, 60. 43. See footnote 38 above. 44. “The Ethics of Human Cloning,” a lecture sponsored by the Center for Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University, 18 No- vember 2002; excerpted and summarized by Ken Gewertz, “Sandel defends human cloning for research,” Harvard Gazette (November 21, 2002). (Available online at http://www.hno. harvard.edu/ gazette/2002/11.21/13-cloning.html.) 45. “Legal Aspects of the Use of Human Stem Cells,” in Ethi- cal Aspects, 118-133. 46. “Ethical Issues in Therapeutic Cloning,” in Ethical Aspects, 111-117. 47. “Remaking ourselves? The ethics of stem-cell research,” Commonweal 125 (December 4, 1998), 9-10. 48. Panicola, Three Views,” 91. 49. “Ethics at the boundaries of science,” “Back Page” inter-view in Georgia Magazine 81:1 (December 2001): see http://www.uga.edu/gm/1201/FeatBac.html. 50. “Science, philosophy, religion, and use of embryonic stem cells,” Correspondence section of The Lancet 359:9322 (June 8, 2002), 2037; see http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/ PIISO140673602087998/fulltext. 51. Coulam, 863. 52. Willer, “Threads,” in Human Cloning, 86. 53. “Ethical Questions about the Use of Embryos and Women in Therapeutic Cloning (A Response to Mark Hanson),” in Human Cloning, 67. 54. O’ Donovan, 49-56. Page references to this work in the re- mainder of this section appear in parentheses in the text. 55. He had already arranged a study that examined the issue of reproductive cloning in the light of the Commission’s 2002 report What Child Is This? 56. We also noted that a contrasting exegetical approach rec- ommends interpreting “image of God” language more along the lines of the relational/historical indicator approach. 57. O’ Donovan, 57. 58. Ibid., 59. 59. Ibid., 60 60. Ibid., 65. 61. George, “Embryo Ethics,” 8. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., 9. 64. Panicola, “Three Views,” 91. 65. A study of one Brazilian shantytown culture reports how mothers often refrain from naming or baptizing infants “until they begin to walk or talk” (311). In an environment in which “loss is anticipated and bets are hedged” the culture conceives of an infant “as human, but significantly less human than the grown child or adult. There is socialized in the Alto mother an emotion of es- trangement toward the infant that is protective to her, but potentially lethal to the child” (312-313). Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking: Maternal Detachment and Infant Survival in a Brazilian Shantytown,” Ethos 13: 4 (Winter, 1985), 291-317. See also Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Death Without Weep- ing” in Natural History (October 1989), 8-16, and Robert F. Spencer, “The North Alaskan Eskimo: A Study in Ecology and Society,‘ Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 171: 92-93. 66. “Lectures on Galatians” (1535), Luther’s Works, American Edition (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), 26: 95. 397 67. Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther’s World of Thought, trans. Mar- tin H. Bertram (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 68. 68. The goal of this report has been to inform, to give a sense of the complexity and uncertainty that surrounds current debate on the status of embryos, and to develop a line of reasoning that can be used to defend protection of human life from the beginnings of con- ception. We have sought to make use of an approach that will not immediately divide the readers into those who already agree with us and those who just knew we would not understand them. In this light we advise against the use of the language of “murder” in re- gard to the discarding of pre-implantation life. 69. See, e.g., FC SD VI. 70. The complex relationship between the church’s mission and civil righteousness is explored in detail in the CTCR’s September 1995 report Render Unto Caesar...and Unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State. 71. Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub- lishing House, 1978), Hymn 428 (stanza 3). 72, We recognize that, in the rapidly changing world of embry- onic stem cell research, novel proposals and practices may shed new light on the ethical situation. As this report was reaching its final shape, two proposals were being debated that suggested ways to ob- tain embryonic stem cells that might seem to avoid destroying vi- able embryos. “Two methods that create embryonic stem (ES) cells without destroying viable embryos can work—at least in mice. But although some scientists and ethicists herald the research as a step toward finding an uncontroversial way to produce ES cells, it seems clear that neither method completely resolves the ethical debate” (Gretchen Vogel, “Deriving ‘Controversy-Free’ ES Cells Is Contro- versial,” Science 310 (October 21, 2005), 416; available on-line at www.sciencemag. org). If a way can be found to produce embryonic stem cells without destroying embryonic life, then the question of the moral status of the human embryo would no longer be the key question confronting us in embryonic stem cell research. 73. The reader is referred once again to the CTCR’s earlier re- ports on Christians and Procreative Choices (1996) and What Child Is This (2002) for a broader treatment of this issue in the context of Scripture’s teaching about marriage and the family. 74. See again the theological commentary on the hiddenness of God in the perplexing matters of the loss of pre-implantation life (pages 40-41 above). Needless to say, the unfathomable activity of the “hidden God” at work in and through a fallen creation is hardly areliable guide for our moral decision-making. 75. For more information and a variety of helpful resources on embryo adoption, see http:// adopting.adoption.com/child/ embryo-adoption.html. This Web site includes prominent refer- ence to the “Snowflakes” embryo adoption program, a division of Nightlife Christian Adoptions (see http://www.nightlight.org/ snowflakes_description.asp). According to the “Snowflakes” Web site: “Embryos preserved in frozen storage offer great hope for life and for families facing fertility challenges. When a family has been successful in having a child through in vitro fertilization, embryos are often cryo-preserved, resulting in the question of what to do with them. These frozen embryos can be the hope of a child for an infertile couple. Embryo adoption shares this wonderful hope with others. In 1997, Nightlight began the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program, which is helping some of the more than 400,000 frozen embryos realize their ultimate purpose—life—while sharing the hope of a child with an infertile couple.” 76. Unless otherwise indicated, definitions are from the current (November 7, 2005) scientific glossary on the National Institutes of Health stem cell research site at http://stemcells.nih. gov/info/glos- sary.asp. Definitions marked by a single asterisk (*) are taken from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition, 2003). Definitions marked by a double asterisk (**) are taken from the glossary of the CTCR’s 2002 report, What Child Is This? 2007 Convention Workbook