Our President likes to talk about a "culture of life," usually when courting the religious right. For him, and for most other politicians, the "culture of life" is not much more than a code phrase for sympathy with a particular political agenda.
But lately there have been some encouraging signs that influential non-politicians are taking the idea of a "culture of life" more seriously, and are allowing that notion to extend beyond the narrow views espoused by the religious right.
Item: the Roman Catholic bishops of the US are set to announce a major new campaign against the death penalty. The Church’s view, as described by Pope John Paul II in a visit to St. Louis in 1999, is that "the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil." This can be a bitter pill: the impulse to kill an evil person simply because that person "deserves" it – even to do so in a cruel manner involving the intentional infliction of pain – can be difficult to resist. But, at least in the view of the Catholic Church, that impulse must yield to the moral imperative that the sanctity of human life must remain inviolate, regardless of how badly that life may have been used. And so the bishops are about to raise the profile of their opposition to the death penalty. Whether this campaign will rival the Church’s aggressive lobbying against, say, abortion or stem cell research remains to be seen. (Will we see Catholic bishops denying communion to politicians who favor the death penalty?) But the message is clear: a true "culture of life" is about way more than abortion.
Item: a prominent Catholic who serves on the President’s Council on Bioethics has come out in favor of "therapeutic cloning" for the purpose of conducting stem cell research. Dr. Paul McHugh said that therapeutic cloning – known technically as somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT – does not create a viable embryo, and should therefore be seen as consistent with church teaching that bars the creation of human life for research purposes (official church doctrine is at odds with McHugh’s position). SCNT involves replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized egg cell with the nucleus of a somatic cell such as a skin, heart, or nerve cell, and then stimulating the cell to begin dividing. McHugh contrasted that procedure, which he said "produces embryos with such severe epigenetic problems that they cannot survive to birth," with in vitro fertilization (such as occurs in fertility clinics), in which an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm cell in an effort to create a viable human embryo. Interestingly, McHugh’s conclusion – that therapeutic cloning/SCNT is acceptable for stem cell research while using "surplus embryos" from fertility clinics is not – is exactly the opposite of MA Gov Mitt Romney’s position, which seems driven more by political expediency than any discernible principle. McHugh, aware that part of creating a "culture of life" is finding ways to cure diseases that destroy countless human lives, said that "if we could reap the benefits (cures for major diseases) using adult stem cells or SCNT, I’d lose no sleep over the methods." (Still not convinced that a "culture of life" can include stem cell research? Read this story about a scientist who has placed himself at the center of the stem cell research maelstrom by trying to cure the disease that afflicts his children.)
Let’s get one thing clear: everyone – everyone – is in favor of "life" in the abstract. But when you get down to particular policies, it is not always so easy to determine how best to create a true "culture of life." The scientists devoting their careers to stem cell research do so not because they like destroying embryos, but because they want to save lives by curing diseases. The Catholic bishops and others who oppose the death penalty in all cases do so not because they like murderers, but because they believe in the sanctity of all human life. These issues often involve competing moral imperatives, as well as complex facts (such as the true nature of somatic cell nuclear transfer) that do not lend themselves easily to sound bites suitable for press releases. The more we debate these issues on their true merits, and the less we pretend that resorting to code words like "culture of life" advances the debate, the better off we will all be.
Hi David, It is good the church is going to pick up the fight agaionst the death penalty. As a Catholic, who has serious problems with the Church, but not the Faith, i have seen the church fight against the death penalty for many years. The Church took a prominent role against it when it came to a legislative vote 8 years ago. So this is not new. It is a copntinuation of what it has been doing.Other than ortion and gay rights, it would be hard to call the church anything but progressive when u take away those issues.The church has been fighhting economic and political injustices through out the world for hundreds of years.It is too bad that the church became a criminal organization (at least in this country)by concealing and helping child molesters.I confess ignorants on the intricasies of stemmcell research. Need to get off my ass and read a little more in depth about it. I want to support it. (Not that anyone gives a crap if i do)
David, thanks for this. I was wondering if and when you were going to address Volokh’s (since-retracted) blood-lust. I thought it was awfully disturbing that a law professor would admire what I consider to be a conflation of “retribution” and “justice”.Here’s the problem with the murder/death penalty equation: nothing, but nothing, can bring an innocent victim back to life. The nature of the crime is that there is nothing that fits the crime, nothing that can set things right — not “blood money”, not torture, not death. It’s an ethical dead end. The best we can do is to deter, protect, and demonstrate (see below) — I would say that usually, rehabilitation is out of the question.Mark Kleiman has the argument that made Volokh retract, which also addresses the demonstrative function of punishment, i.e. that the punishment demonstrates how much esteem we hold for the victim. But this is a dangerous game to play — how do you value some victims over others? Also, if the punishment “expresses” something about the punishers, how do we think of ourselves? That’s what separates us from Iran — I would hope.
Charley: as I understand Volokh’s position, it is that “retribution” is a valid part of “justice,” so I think he would reject the notion that he has conflated the two. Also, as I read his “retraction,” he has conceded that the American legal system could never handle the kind of extreme punishments that he thinks might be warranted in some cases – but I do not read him to have conceded that such punishments are never “appropriate” in a larger moral sense. In other words, he is dropping the argument for essentially practical reasons, not because he now thinks he was wrong on the principle.Troll: I quite agree with you that the Catholic Church, and particularly some of its adherents, can claim a long and honorable history of fighting against injustice throughout the world. The incredibly inspiring life of Sister Dorothy Stang is an excellent example of deep faith translated into extraordinary works.
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