LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 397

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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