Declaration of Dependence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind the party in power requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation and be content they can speak freely.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men human beings persons¹ are created born² equal, that they are endowed by their Ccreator³ with certain unalienable Rrights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness health care, taxes and sex⁴. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men persons, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed party in power, — That whenever any Form of Government person or persons becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People Government to alter or to abolish it ignore or ridicule them, and to institute new Government Laws, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established persons¹ should not be changed repressed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind persons are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off find common ground with such Government, and to provide new Guards taxes for their future security⁵.

---

1. "person" refers to every member of the human race who is (a) already born (see footnote 2), (b) has no genetic defects that would require excessive health care costs or be unpleasant to look at, (c) has a life expectancy of at least 8 years from the current date, according to government statistics, and (d) meets any other requirements as defined by federal or state law.

2. "born" refers to a human being who (a) is wanted by all of its parents (however many there may be) or (b) if no parents are identified (e.g. clone or child of anonymous egg and sperm donors) is wanted by the state, and (b) gestated for at least 23 weeks, (c) has a weight of at least 2.2 pounds, and (d) has a length of at least 12 inches.

3. "creator" shall mean either the state, or, in the case of IVF, cloning, or other methods, the laboratory or corporation which funded or performed the procedure.

4. "sex" refers to any act, alone or with one or more other person of any sexual orientation, that gives immediate sexual gratification.

5. provided they meet the requirements of footnotes 1 and 2 above.

Read More

Pax in Caritas on 9-11

My mother has one of the best attitudes of anyone I know. One of her axioms is when you're sad or lonely or depressed, get out there and help someone who's worse off.

I remember 9-11. I was working for a small company, and when I walked into the office that morning, something was amiss. "The twin towers were hit by a plane" someone said. I remembered how the Empire State Building had been hit by a plane many years ago, and thought it was something similar at first. Some idiot in a Cessna had takena wrong turn. "No, it's a jet" I was told.

The offices we were in had cable, but no TV (we were using it for internet access only). One of the guys went across the street to an electronics store and bought a TV, and we connected it in the conference room. The entire office piled into the room and we sat around the TV.

The images were shocking. We watched the towers go down, and spent the rest of the day talking about it and watching it played over and over. Being in central NJ, we could actually see the cloud of smoke near the horizon drifting southward. That faint cloud no the horizon made it much more real than the images on the TV set.

Over the next few days, stories began to come in. One of my best friends worked in the towers, but took that day off to take care of a parking permit issue. He was one of the only survivors in his company. Our church was hit especially hard. We had (if I recall the numbers correctly) something like 40 parishioners who were in the building, and we lost many of them. I remember going to memorial services and hearing them play the 4^th verse of "America the Beautiful"

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

while we all sat and cried. Over the next few days it became clear that I was sad. Well, now I'd say "duh", but it didn't hit me right away. I decided it was time to help someone. Fortunately for me DW's company had a program where employees (and their spouses) could volunteer to help support the rescue efforts. So we signed up, got our assignment and set out for some warehouse in northern NJ to do something. What we wound up doing was sorting donated material and moving it around a hug warehouse to be sent over by barge to the rescue workers.

We had pallets of work gloves, dust masks, water, sports drinks, T shirts. You name it, we loaded it up. In retrospect the work was fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things, and we weren't equipped with the skills to do it very well (computer geeks are not known for their strong backs), but we were doing something to help, and it was like therapy for me. When I went home that evening, sweaty and dirt streaked, I felt 100% better.

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that sometimes, mother knows best. Feeling blue? Find someone and help them. You'll be doing both of you a favor.

Read More

Oh No! Not More Stem Cells!

I came across two articles yesterday about stem cells, so it's time for another "embryo vs. adult" article. As background, see my earlier blog The Stem Cell Debate is Over? about the difference between adult and embryonic stem cells. So, onto the latest news in stem cell research.

According to Liposuction Leftovers, fat cells, as a byproduct of liposuction can quickly and easily be converted into iPS (induced pluripotent) stem cells, which provides an easy way to to do research with iPS cells, and potentially a faster way to provide treatments derived from those cells. The research isn't "scalpel ready", of course, but the idea would be to do a liposuction-like procedure to remove fat cells form a patient, convert them to iPS cells, and use those cells to treat a variety of diseases on the patient himself. Since the cells are the patient's own tissue there is no risk of tissue rejection or other immune problems. As the article states

“Thirty to 40 percent of adults in this country are obese,” agreed cardiologist Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, the paper’s senior author. “Not only can we start with a lot of cells, we can reprogram them much more efficiently. Fibroblasts, or skin cells, must be grown in the lab for three weeks or more before they can be reprogrammed. But these stem cells from fat are ready to go right away.”

The fact that these cells don't have to be cultured is important, because existing ways to culture human skin cells to make iPS cells involves using mouse-derived "feeder cells", and scientists are concerned about cross-species contamination which could be a barrier to developing treatments using the cells.

At the same time I can across Immune Response in Mice Suggests Limits to Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy. This research was done on mice. Mice are used in a lot of research not because scientists want to kill them, but because their immune systems are very similar to a human's. They are used where the research would be dangerous to humans, or the effects are unknown. As the article states:

"We all want to know what's going to happen if you transplant these stem cells into a person," said Mark Davis, MD, PhD, the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor and professor of microbiology and immunology. But because unmodified embryonic stem cells can cause cancer, the researchers transplanted the cells into mice rather than people.

Proponents of embryonic stem cell research claim that embryonic stem cells are "given a free pass" by the body's immune system, but that is conjecture. So the researchers studied the mouse immune system's response to embryonic stem cells, and discovered than contrary to the beliefs of embryonic stem cell researchers, the immune system does attack embryonic stem cells, since they are foreign tissue. As the article quotes

"It's getting harder and harder to believe that these cells are immunoprivileged," said Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and of radiology. "In fact, the rejection of these cells confirms our suspicions that they do cause an immune response."

Read More

Moving Day

I know I promised some of you I'd blog about boy scout camp, and I haven't, but this is on my mind right now. Last week we helped my mother move into an "alternative retirement" community. What that means is "semi-assisted" living. It was tough.

For 56 years my mother has lived in the same house. It's the only home my sister and I knew, until we moved out into our own places. As kids, I remember going to my grandparents' houses. My mother's mother lived in an apartment in Brooklyn. It was the first floor of a brownstone. I remember my sister and I used to love sneaking around through the servants' corridors (of course, they had no servants, but the brownstones were built assuming that everyone had one, and the "secret passages" were still there so the servants could serve without being seen). My father's parents lived in a house on a huge piece of land (1 acre, remember I was a city kid) way out on Long Island. There I remember raking leaves in the fall, picking blueberries from their patch in the summer, and exploring all the nooks and crannies of the house and property.

I remember every holiday or event we spent at my grandparents' houses. The smells, the sounds, the feel of the carpeting. The spots of color on the wall from the lights on the Christmas tree. The fake fireplace. The small wooden farm toys from Germany. The bronze elephant commemorating the opening of the Brooklyn bridge. The bright light of the sun in the kitchen. The best coffee I have ever had. From the Christmas goose to the Easter egg hunts on the huge lawn their houses were a wonderland.

But home was our house. We played games in the basement, which my father had finished himself. I remember when he installed a steel I-beam and cut the lolly columns (he was an engineer and a welder) to make the basement bigger, and I remember him installing the tile floor and paneling. There was the patio we sat out on on summer nights, trying to find satellites and meteors. There was the swing set, which we used pretty much every day until it rusted through and fell down. We went all over the world, and even to the moon and planets on that swing set.

When we got a bit older, and the swings were gone, we added on a kitchen, pushed out into the backyard. I remember many family meals around that kitchen table. There were breakfasts, with the sunshine pouring through the east-facing window. Lunches eaten on the run as we interrupted our play. Dinners and family conversation. Homework on school nights, and family games in the summer time.

My mother's mother had a stroke and moved in with us. It took her a long time to recover, but we relished having grandma in our home full time. No need to take the train into Brooklyn, even though we missed her old apartment. After a few years, she passed away, and her room became the computer room. My father's parents both passed away, and although my aunt and uncle moved in, and kept the place pretty much the same, it wasn't the same. But our home was still there.

The next big change in the house came after my sister and I were grown and gone, with kids of our own, when my dad battled cancer and parkinson's disease. He was wheelchair bound, and my mother put a deck and ramp on the back of the house so we could wheel him in and out easily. The den was now his bedroom, and my kids used to run in there first thing when we visited, and jump on him. I remember sitting by his bed having conversations, and the kids putting on shows for him. He eventually passed away in that very room.

But through all the changes the house was there, and it was still "my" house, full of memories for me, and now for my kids, as they played and explored when we visited my parents. And time went on.

My mother is 85 now, and her health isn't what it once was. The house became difficult for her. A light bulb would burn out or a faucet would leak and she would have to call a neighbor or wait until we visited her to fix it. She was blessed with excellent neighbors and lots of wonderful friends nearby. Still, the stairs became hard to navigate, and so she pretty much lived on the first floor.

About two years ago she decided to move somewhere easier for her. She looked around, and chose the "alternative retirement" community relatively near our house. She wanted to move while she was still mobile enough to get out and make friends. On the other hand, she really hated to leave her long time close friends and neighbors and her parish. For our part we told her we would support whatever decision she made. She dragged her feet, and then there was the house to sell and all.

Finally, moving day came, and it snuck up on me. Furniture had been given away. Garage sales had been held, and yet there was a ton of stuff to move (3.5 tons, we later learned from the movers). Imagine moving from a 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a full basement, garage and attic to a one bedroom apartment! There was a whirlwind of packing, moving, cleaning and unpacking. Some of the stuff had been taken by my sister and niece. Other stuff wouldn't fit and went to our house. I'm sitting here staring at a stack of boxes filling most of my living room because we just don't know where to put them yet.

I have many observations about mom's new home. It is a lot like being at a resort. There are game rooms, a pool, a dining hall, stores etc. The room is a bit like a hotel room. The building is a big square with a courtyard, and the apartments have a hall between them, so there are windows only on one wall. Since mom's apartment faces the courtyard, there really isn't any direct sunlight. That kind of bothers me after the house she left, which was very sunny. Also, I know it's a bonus to be in the company of people her own age, but the lack of children or even middle aged people makes it seem a bit flat.

It wasn't until the next day that it began to hit me. I will never see the house I grew up in again, or if by some chance I do, it will likely be completely different. I feel like part of my life is gone. I feel selfish for feeling that way. After all, it's only a house, and I didn't really spend much time there the last few years. My mom is the one who's important, and she's probably missing the house more than me. My home now is here in NJ with my wife and children. It will take a while for my mom's new home to become her home, but it will never be my home. My job now is to make a home for my children, so that they and their kids will have great memories too.

Read More

When Adoption is Wrong

A dear friend and I had a discussion today about the Catholic Church's position on reproductive techonolgy. She had read this article and was surprised to hear that the church would be against adoption. Of course, the church isn't against adoption of children but is against embryo adoption. I understand why but still have some questions.

First, IVF itself. My friend was curious as to why the church, which places such a high value on human life, would be against technology to allow a couple to have children. When a couple loves each other, and wants to share that love with a child, and we have the capability to give them one, why would we not want to do that? This is a child that would be loved and cherished, and clearly the couple has the financial means to give it a good life (or they couldn't afford IVF in the first place).

Very good questions. Let's consider what IVF is. Wikipedia says:

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process by which egg cells are fertilised by sperm outside the womb, in vitro. IVF is a major treatment in infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. The process involves hormonally controlling the ovulatory process, removing ova (eggs) from the woman's ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a fluid medium. The fertilised egg (zygote) is then transferred to the patient's uterus with the intent to establish a successful pregnancy.

Aside from the issues surrounding the morality of removing eggs and sperm, and bypassing the relationship and act of love between man and wife, it sounds OK until you get into the method. Eggs are removed from the woman, sperm from the man, and the eggs are fertilized in a petri dish or some other medium outside the body. About 10 to 30 eggs are removed and fertilized at a time. After two to five days, the embryos are "selected" and several are implanted into the woman's uterus.

The selection process is one were the embryologist choose which children will live or die based on criteria. Can you say eugenics? If you can select a child based on these criteria, why not add criteria such as eye color, sex, etc.? We're looking at the precursor to Gattaca.

Then there's the pregnancy rate of 35% and live birth rate of 27%. Of course, there is a high risk of multiple births, so we will want to further cull the embryos by aborting all but one. We've killed enough of our own children already, so what's one more?

Of course, the alternative to this procedure for infertile couple is adopting an already born child. That procedure is extremely risky and has moral questions, like...oh wait! There isn't any risk or any moral dilemma associated with live adoption.

So, rather than thinking of a couple who wants to share their beautiful love, the image in reality is a couple who is so vain that they would ignore the option of sharing their love with a child who needs them, create 10-30 children of their own, kill most of their own children, and risk the lives of the ones they don't intentionally kill, in order to have a "perfect" baby (where "perfect" means having their genetic characteristics). We're not talking about an act of love, but an act of supreme selfishness.

As for being "wanted", whether or not we "want" or even like a person does not affect their basic human dignity and rights.

Back to adoption of embryos. As mentioned, IVF creates 10-30 embryos. The ones which are not used may be destroyed outright or may be frozen and stored. After all, if the couple wants to have another child, it will be cheaper to use a frozen one than to start the process all over again. If the couple doesn't want another child, we can use these for medical experiments. Who cares about them?

Well, some people do, and want to do something about it. But what? One possibility is to "adopt" an embryo. Have it implanted in a woman and grow until birth. It is this "embryo adoption" that the Church teaches us is immoral. Again, one can ask "why?" Here is the case of a technology to allow a couple to have children. When a couple loves each other, and wants to share that love with a child, and we have the capability to give them one, why would we not want to do that? This is a child that would be loved and cherished.

First of all, we have some of the same arguments as before. We would have an embryologist "selecting" which embryo to implant, and we would be putting those children "in harm's way" given the expected number of them that would die. But of course you could make the argument that they are already at risk, when they might be used for medical research or destroyed.

My understanding is that the Church's position is that taking an embryo that is not your own and implanting it in your womb is a form of adultery. Yet, adopting that same child after it has been born is not. At first glance that sounds a little too much like making a distinction between a person who is born and one who is not. However, it is not the state of the embryo that makes the difference, but the intimacy with the mother's body that makes it adultery.

Since it is not valid to perform an evil act even if we intend a good outcome (the end never justifies the means), this means that a couple can't adopt an embryo as it would constitute an evil act (adultery) even if the intended outcome was good (the preservation of the life of the embryo). However, there are certain cases where an unintended evil must be accepted - in the case of ectopic pregnancy, for example.

Could one not make the argument that the implantation of the embryo would be an unfortunate but acceptable evil in order to try to save the life of the embryo? I would argue not, since the implantation could not be done without intention. Thus it doesn't meet the criteria outlined in the ectopic pregnancy case. Hence the Church's term "moral dilemma" in the article.

I'm still not sure I understand this issue entirely. If you have more information or opinion on the subject please let me know.

Read More

Reproductive Technology

This is an intro to a topic I want to cover later, embryonic adoption. I know the subject has been covered (probably better) by others (more eloquent than I), but it's my blog, so here goes.

Most people I know dismiss the Catholic position on reproductive "technology" (abortion, fertility treatments) as being a "religious thing" and since they don't agree with the religion, they are absolved from having to consider the position at all. Yet to Catholics, these things are not a matter of faith, but a matter of careful reason, and we can't for the life of us figure out why anyone of any (or no) faith could fail to follow the reasoning.

So let's look at the issue for a moment. Without invoking God, or faith, or any aspect that is not totally secular. Let's use as our only guidelines science and history. The first part is scientific. An embryo is a complete unique human being. That is not a matter of opinion, or faith or belief of any kind, that is a scientific fact. By any reasonable definition, there is no lightning bolt moment of change that occurs from the moment of conception through birth that takes you from non-human to human.

The embryo is not part of the mother's body, nor is it a "potential-human" or any other of the terms people make up to try to defend a pro-choice opinion they already hold. All of those arguments are anti-scientific and are simply not supported by fact. Don't believe it? Get a textbook on embryology and find where it says the embryo is not human. For some web references, check out When Does Life Begin?, The Embryo as a Human Being and When Does Science Say Human Life Begins?.

So there's the scientific evidence supporting the Church's position. You could say "yes, the unborn is human, but it doesn't have rights." To which I will apply the second point, one which is made quite clearly in the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal. They are endowed with certain unalienable rights. Among those rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. First, let's look at what this means, then why it is an important principle to hold.

With all due respect to those who argue for inclusive language, "men" as used here means "members of the human race" (if you don't believe me, look in a dictionary). So it is saying all human beings have equal rights. A human being's rights don't depend on his location, his skin color, his beliefs, his size or ability. Very powerful words, and words which this country has not yet lived up to. From it's beginning America practiced slavery, although it was not in accordance with these words. Today it is the unborn human being who has his basic rights violated.

But the Declaration of Independence says "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Doesn't the mother's pursuit of happiness count? Yes it does, but consider that (except in the case of rape) the woman chose to risk pregnancy (even if she did not desire it, it was a consequence of her freely chosen course of action), so her "pursuit of happiness" has not been violated, she just made a decision that was not consistent with her goals (if her goal was not to be pregnant).

In any case nine months of pregnancy doesn't ruin your chance at happiness forever, whereas losing one's life irrevocably destroys all one's rights for all time. Those three rights were not put in that order by accident, but in order to reflect a priority. Without life there are no other rights possible. Without liberty, pursuing one's happiness is not possible.

OK, so equal rights means we don't kill humans, form conception to death. But who's to say that we should have equal rights for all. Suppose I say that some rights are for "people", not just "humans" and I define "people" to mean those who are born. Let's follow this thought to its logical conclusion. Someone (presumably someone in power) has to decide who is a "person". Since there is no logical, scientific means of determining what "person" means (remember we're ignoring the scientific term "human being"), the definition is arbitrary, and will come to mean whatever those with that power choose to make it to support their goals.

Could this happen? History tells us it can. In colonial America (and until frighteningly recently) Africans were considered a "sub-human" species, not "people" and thus not subject to equal rights with white skinned people. Thus, slavery was acceptable. In Nazi Germany, there were several classes of people based on how close to the genetic Arin "ideal" they were. Jews, in particular, were "non-persons". Don't like that system? The government would declare you a "non-person". Off to the concentration camps to be a slave, and ultimately killed. We've seen numerous groups up to the current day that define one group or another as being "non-persons" to justify genocide. It has happened in Iraq, Darfour, China, and numerous other places in recent history. Once we allow any redefinition of person in order to remove someone's fundamental rights we are on a slippery slope.

Thus, the only logical, ethical, moral and just choice is to be pro-life. Only by protecting the rights of all human beings as they are clearly delineated by science can we avoid slavery, war, genocide (no, being pro-life is not sufficient to stop these, but it is necessary)!

And thus is the Church's position on abortion, and in-vitro fertilization and most other reproductive procedures (because they all involve killing human beings). Embryonic stem cells fall under the same logic (human beings are killed to harvest the cells). All arrived at without mentioning God (oops!)

Read More

Why the Scouts?

I was a Cub Scout. I made it all the way through Webelos. In fact, my dad was my den leader in Webelos. Yet I never went into Boy Scouts. I'm still not sure why. Through the years that part of my life has become misty until I don't really recall much except certain events, good and bad.

My oldest son followed in my footsteps in this regard. His mother was his den leader, and like me he didn't cross over into Boy Scouts. In his case the reason is clear - his friends didn't go into Boy Scouts.

Now we move to son #2. He was thrilled to cross over. It was I who was a bit hesitant. I mean c'mon - camping every month - even in the winter? These guys are crazy. I went along with it and went on my first scout camping trip.

It was March, and it was cold and damp. We arrived at dusk and carried our gear a great distance from the parking lot to the camp site. His buddy arrived about the same time, and together the three boys who were sharing a tent (scouts don't get their own tent - they share with other scouts) began setting it up by flashlight.

Anthony, my son's friend's father, and I started to help, but were told by an older scout that the boys had to do all the work - we could give them advice or verbal instructions, but it was their tent and they had to set it up. And surprisingly, they did get it set up fairly quickly.

Anthony and I set up my tent, which we were sharing, and by the time we were done, the scouts had a cheery fire going and were running around laughing and joking. After "cracker barrel" (cheese, crackers, apples, grapes, etc.) the kids were sent off to their tents and the adults sat around the fire drinking coffee and chatting. It was actually kind of fun.

That night I learned two important things. First, that you could stay warm in a tent, even if it was freezing outside. Second I learned that I can out-snore the best of them (or so they claim)! The next morning I learned how good food can taste when you're camping.

My son didn't last all the way through that first weekend, but has since gotten "into" it in a big way. Not only have we been camping in cold or hot weather, the past two summers we went to camp for a week, and next year he hopes to be able to attend the jamboree. Of course it's not all camping, and we have done various advancement and merit badge activities together, from fishing to star gazing to 50 mile bike rides.

I know not all troops are created equal, but ours is great. The older boys help the younger ones and everyone is (more or less) included and taken care of, no matter what their background or abilities. Parents (of both genders) are welcome to help in various capacities and the leaders are an impressive bunch of caring and capable men. If you are considering scouting, do "shop around" nearby troops to find one that meets your needs.

I am glad my son decided to participate in scouting. The Boy Scout's mission statement is "to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law." Over the past year and a half I have seen how scouting has helped him to grow in knowledge and confidence, as well as give us a way to be closer as father and son.

Read More