As regular readers of SHS know, I worry a lot about the growing trend to instrumentalize human life and use it as a natural resource. Thus, I have opposed federal funding of ESCR, human cloning, redefining death for organ harvesting purposes, fetal farming, etc.
I think there is a real ethical difference between destroying human life for the purpose of instrumentalization, and using already cadaver tissue instrumentally, as in organ transplantation. I think there is also a difference between using embryonic or fetal tissues in medical research or treatments taken from a human life–destroyed for that purpose–and using fetal cadaver tissues either from miscarriage or abortion when the destruction was not procured for the purpose of experimentation or instrumental use.
But this story gives me real pause. A San Francisco company, called Neocutis, Inc., used skin tissue from an aborted fetus to create beauty products. From the story:
In a statement released Friday, in response to a wave of condemnation from pro-life and religious blogs, Neocutis defended the use of its trademarked ingredient, Processed Skin Cell Proteins, or PSP, arguing that the fetal cell line was harvested in a responsible, ethical manner for use in treating severe dermatological injuries.
The company compared its situation to that of researchers who used fetal kidney cells to develop the polio vaccine. “Our view – which is shared by most medical professionals and patients – is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe,” said the statement.
No, I think not. Fetal tissue does not continue to be used in vaccines, as I understand it. It is sometimes used in the testing and development. Moreover, the company sells its products as still using fetal products:
The firm’s online entries say the products were “inspired by fetal skin’s unique properties” and that the technology “uses cultured fetal skin cells to obtain an optimal, naturally balanced mixture of skin nutrients.”
“Neocutis means, literally, new skin. And who wouldn’t like to turn back time to create flawless baby skin again?” says one ad.
I think some of the reactions quoted in the article are over the top. This isn’t akin to using human skin in lamps taken from the death camp victims. On the other hand, these cell biproducts are not being used medically to save lives or ease suffering. Rather, it is about the shallow matter of smooth skin about which the fetal use is touted as a selling point. And in that “next step,” I think, is true decadence.
November 3rd, 2009 | 12:53 pm
That is gross, and morally repugnant.
November 3rd, 2009 | 2:21 pm
Yes, but the way things are, how do they GET to be cadavers?
Well when they were using sheep cells or other animal products nobody minded. Except the animal rights people. I’m an animal rights person and I didn’t mind as long as it was an animal already killed for food, but then I consider humans to be animals that eat other animals, which we are. When it’s animals being used for “medical research” because the results can be analogous to humans, the next step is humans, etc., it’s ok with the non-animal-rights people; in fact, the Nuremberg code (don’t let me get started on THAT travesty again) requires it. But when by similarly logical progression it’s this, all of a sudden those who oppose the animal rights movement are up in arms. We’re NOT that much smarter than the other animals; they’re way ahead of us on logic and common sense.
November 4th, 2009 | 12:00 am
By the way, Wesley, I think this is worse than even you seem to think it is. It doesn’t give me pause; I find it an obscenity. Fetal skin belongs on foetuses. Just as minks’ skin belongs on minks, etc. Eating a cow and using its skin for leather is fine. Messing with something that still belongs in the uterus is something else entirely. But this is where “science” and “fertility science” have taken us. If someone is infertile, they’re infertile. Life isn’t a matter of being entitled to what we want just because we want it. Leave the womb and what belongs in it alone. I can’t believe things have gotten THIS bad. It shouldn’t surprise me though considering what else has been condoned, in the treatment of non-human animals and of the human elderly and disabled.
November 4th, 2009 | 12:13 am
DONATED fetal skin tissue? Who donated it? The fetus? Limited, prudent, responsible? Who decides that? Like the government or doctors or hospitals or judges or anyone else deciding who gets to live, who gets treatment, whether, etc.? This is WAY beyond decadent!!! Decadent is child’s play next to THIS.
November 4th, 2009 | 12:57 am
What kind of person would be wiling to (let alone want to) USE this stuff?
November 4th, 2009 | 11:32 am
I think you make an important distinction, Wesley: The use of fetal tissue to create vaccines is an act done in the past. It appears that this company will be harvesting fetal cells in an on-going manner. Or that, at least, is the impression I get. And as you say, the fact that they are advertising it as being especially good for adult skin _because_ it contains fetal cells (which is probably nonsense anyway) is a new low of decadence.
I read a satire on the use of embryonic stem-cells along much these lines, in fact. I believe it was published in Human Life Review a few years ago. Satire becomes increasingly difficult to write when reality catches up so fast.
November 4th, 2009 | 2:59 pm
Whatever your beliefs in the sanctity of life, this ought to give one pause in the same way that eating people, whether they had already died of natural causes or not, would give one pause. There is something inherently repugnant to the consumption of humans for purposes much more trivial than saving someone else’s life, such as “for the succulent taste” or for good skin.
November 4th, 2009 | 6:25 pm
[...] liberals think— #2972: Anti-aging cream made from the body of an aborted boy; The New Decadence: Fetal Cells Used in Beauty Treatment …. (proudtobecanadian, ft) Just So Darned [...]
November 4th, 2009 | 10:42 pm
Humans have been used as a resource before. It was called slavery. Even then, would they have done THIS?
November 6th, 2009 | 10:47 am
Heather: There definitely IS something inherently repugnant about the consumption of humans … excepting, of course, transubstantiation at Sunday Mass.
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