LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 388

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388 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMIISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Others, however, take up O’Donovan’s argumentation at pre-
cisely this point, and turn it against his conclusions. They agree that
the question of the moral and spiritual significance of pre-implan-
tation human life should be decided on the basis of relational/his-
torical considerations. And they focus on O’Donovan’s statement
that pre-implantation life presents “to us members of our own
species who are doubtfully proper objects of compassion and love”
(65). They then engage in the sorts of arguments we saw in the sci-
entific and philosophical perspectives that point to marked differ-
ences between the way humans typically interact with embryos and
the way they interact with fetuses and live-born infants. Their con-
clusion is that this biblically informed approach shows significant
differences between the moral and spiritual significance of pre-im-
plantation human life and that of fetuses and infants.

The relational/historical approach is a promising way of thought,
well grounded in Scripture and Trinitarian doctrine that is rooted in
the Scripture. Reflection on Christian thought concerning Trinitar-
ian persons and, in particular, Christ’s divine/human personhood,
provides a key to biblically informed discussions of what it is to be
a person with full moral/spiritual status. This Trinitarian approach
takes the arguments beyond an exclusive focus on the Fifth Com-
mandment understood in a Greek way to concern for an isolated en-
tity’s “right to life.” The conversation expands to consider the entire
Decalog and human fellowship with God and with each other.

In this Christian theological perspective the key question be-
comes: where does God’s fellowship with human persons, and thus
our own fellowship with human persons, appropriately begin with
a history and a name? We will return to this question in the con-
structive arguments of part three.

Part Three: Discerning and Loving Human Persons

Pastor Solomon has been meeting with various people includ-
ing biology faculty at the local university. He has decided to arrange
for an adult study series in the congregation on in vitro fertilization,
stem cell research, and cloning for biomedical research.**

An important part of the study involves helping people become
well informed about current possibilities and practices in these ar-
eas. He has used part one of this report to help in this task. Another
important part of the study requires that people become familiar
with the main lines of argument on various sides of the issues. Part
two helps with this task. But he also believes that God’s people need
to be well prepared to defend the principle that pre-implantation em-
bryos should be accorded protection on the same basis as live-born
humans.

Pastor Solomon offers two main lines of reasoning in favor of
this principle:

1.God’s Word makes plain that God cares for human lives from
beginning to end. Pastor Solomon recognizes that challenging ques-
tions have been raised concerning whether God’s care extends
across all fertilized eggs, but he believes that the burden of proof
lies with those who claim that God’s care is not so extensive. And
he does not think clear and convincing arguments have been made
to carry the burden.

2. Pastor Solomon suggests that the first line of biblically in-
formed theological reasoning connects closely with scientific and
philosophical considerations. Human embryos, beginning with
conception, are set on a course of development that leads continu-
ously to an unfolding of a unique human life. Some people both in
and out of the church maintain that this continuous unfolding is
punctuated with moments where a fine can be drawn between em-
bryonic life that need not be protected and embryonic or fetal or
live-born life that should be protected. But Pastor Solomon has
found no biblical evidence for drawing such a line. Indeed, people
of biblical faith find it compelling that several passages speak of
God’s love and care for an individual from even before the earliest
physical moment. Furthermore, science and philosophy have not

2007 Convention Workbook

been able to agree on which punctuation point is the best to choose
for drawing a moral line. Once again, Pastor Solomon contends that
biblical faith places the burden of proof on those who would deny
protection to certain embryos. And he does not think that clear and
convincing arguments have been made to carry the burden.

Pastor Solomon’s reasoning about “burdens of proof” is suited
to the controversial situation the church finds itself in today. At the
beginning of part two we observed that those who take the position
that embryos should be protected tend to think of themselves as try-
ing to demonstrate the truth that the continuity between pre-im-
plantation human life and later stages of human life carries a
significant moral meaning. They believe that this continuity re-
quires the extension of full protection to embryonic life. In contrast,
persons who defend the use of embryos for stem cell research tend
to claim that defenders of pre-implantation human life have not pro-
duced clear and convincing proof of a continuity between embry-
onic life and later stages that can undergird significant moral
implications. Without always realizing or acknowledging their
strategy, people advocating the use of embryos for research tend to
be making an implicit “burden of proof” argument. They claim that
because the health and well-being of people afflicted by disease and
injury might be improved through embryonic stem cell research, a
heavy burden of proof lies upon those who would stop the research.
Their hope is that by casting some doubt upon the pro-life argu-
ments, they can claim that the burden has not been met and there-
fore the research can go forward.

What the Commission is now suggesting in the person of Pas-
tor Solomon is that pro-life proponents should recognize the bur-
den of proof reasoning used by their opponents. Once this is
recognized, pro-life arguments can take a new strategic direction.
If the proponents of research wish to use burden of proof reason-
ing, they need to defend their claim that the burden of proof rests
upon those who seek to protect embryos. Our fictional Pastor
Solomon is turning the tables on the opponents. A crucial claim in
his argumentation is that in matters so serious as the taking of lives
that are in continuity with lives we know we should protect, the bur-
den lies not on those who defend human lives but on those who
would kill them.

The defenders of embryonic stem cell research should no longer
be allowed to claim that just because they can cast some doubt upon
the full moral significance of embryonic life, they are thereby freed
from concern with the possibility that fellow humans are being
killed. They, rather than those who defend the embryos, are under
the burden fully to prove that embryos are not to be afforded the
protections they would fully receive at some moment in the future.
Once this is understood, then if reasonable doubt can be cast upon
the claim that embryos can be killed without moral consequence,
the burden of proof has not been met—and the research should not
go forward.

We are not suggesting that we should abandon attempts to es-
tablish the truth of the moral significance of the continuity between
embryonic life and later stages. We are simply noting that in the
midst of serious and pervasive disagreement, burden of proof rea-
soning is one way humans in argumentative conflict try to make
progress. We think that the defenders of embryonic stem cell re-
search are implicitly using this type of reasoning, but that their use
of it will not stand up to scrutiny—-as can its use by those who seek
to defend embryos.

In the following paragraphs we expand on Pastor Solomon’s
biblical insights, and then we turn to the use of burden of proof rea-
soning in the midst of scientific and philosophical disagreement.
This latter examination takes the form of commentary on the op-
posing lines of thought surveyed in part two.