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A Crisis of Faith in Science?

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

If Laura Stepp at CNN is to be believed, conservatives who oppose the use of contraceptives for religious reasons have lost their faith in science and are abdicating the use of their intellect in order to maintain an untenable position.

She cites a study which analyzes survey data revealing that, since the mid-1970s, a falling percentage of college-educated conservatives claim to “trust science,” compared to relatively stable numbers among liberals, and argues that those who oppose contraception, question the Neo-Darwinist narrative of evolution, or disagree with certain political measures to address global climate change, are opposed to science in general.

This argument presumes that opposition to a particular political action is the same as distrust of the data upon which it is ostensibly based. But this is not the case. Science is the empirical study of the world around us, and it provides us with information we can use to make decisions; but it cannot tell us what should be , only what is . The choice to use contraceptives or to support legislation limiting industrial emissions may be based in part on scientific data, but the choice itself is subjective. Acceptance or rejection of a scientific finding does not necessarily dictate the decisions one makes, whether moral or pragmatic.

Just before describing (and dismissing) the proposed link between prostate cancer and contraceptive pills, a classic “falsehood” embraced by traditional-minded conservatives, Stepp points out that “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, counts contraception as one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 20th century.” When one accepts that contraception is the summit of scientific and medical prowess, to hypothesize that negative side effects may exist and warrant further study is tantamount to blasphemy. The irony here is that the very author claiming an anti-scientific bias among her opponents is herself dismissing peer-reviewed scientific studies which question the universal good of contraception, even if only to suggest an avenue warranting further exploration.

Her “personal favorite” claim made by her conservative opponents is that “a woman can be considered pregnant before her egg unites with a sperm.” Although apparently unknown to Stepp, this derives originally from a standard used for decades to estimate the time of conception after pregnancy is discovered. But it is also referenced in a recent Arizona legislative effort to prohibit abortions after twenty weeks, which includes the language, “‘Gestational age’ means the age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman.”

Despite this claim’s lengthy clinical pedigree, it is biologically incorrect to presume that conception would occur at the beginning of a woman’s menstrual period, rather than some two weeks later when she is in her fertile phase. Problems with this standard are described in, among other places, the journal Early Human Development . Inasmuch as this history may go some way toward explaining the language in the Arizona legislation, it might also be regarded as a counterpoint to the notion that pro-life lawmakers have collectively disregarded the language of the medical establishment when crafting legislation.

Finally, Ms. Stepp offers one further point to support her hypothesis that conservatives who oppose contraception have lost their faith in science: the fact that some congressmen have argued that the “morning-after pill,” or Plan B, causes abortion. While the bulk of evidence indicates that Plan B does not have an abortion-inducing effect, and that it functions by preventing fertilization from occurring (and is ineffective if it has already taken place), the fact that its mode of action has been the subject of multiple studies could be taken as an indication that the question is not extremely far-fetched.

And for the majority of embryologists who stubbornly believe that life begins at fertilization rather than implantation, a drug or device whose contraceptive action occurs after fertilization does cause an abortion. While it is certainly the subject of controversy, the argument that life begins at conception rather than implantation can hardly be classified as anti-scientific.

Ultimately, one’s attitude toward contraception cannot be defined by science alone, inasmuch as science cannot tell us whether a person ought to be prevented from existing. Religious doctrine may declare that human life bears supernatural dignity, and that the openness to generating new life is a good that should not be opposed by artificial means, but neither of these can be refuted by a scientific study.

Thus, an intellectual or religious opposition to contraception, in principle, has ramifications for the use of scientifically obtained knowledge, but does not in any way oppose the gathering of such knowledge. Far from being anti-scientific or anti-intellectual, the notion of ethics informed by religious faith provides a framework for the application of that which we learn from science”a framework which science alone cannot elucidate.

It’s troubling that an intelligent journalist like Stepp can so easily dismiss her opponents as foolish and deluded, despite the fact that every piece of evidence she raises can be easily rebutted by facts that any journalist could easily obtain. And ultimately, the complementarity of faith and science is not a difficult concept to grasp. Instead, it is those who claim that science itself requires that we hold certain political and moral convictions that distort the essential work of science, and betray their most closely held ideological beliefs.

Rebecca Oas, Ph.D., is a Fellow of HLI America , an educational initiative of Human Life International. She writes for HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum.

RESOURCES

Laura Sessions Stepp, Anti-Science and Anti-Contraception

Committee on Judiciary Senate, Amendment to H.B. 2036

The American Sociological Review, Article Abstracts

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A Stem Cell Report

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:07:00 -0500

Generally speaking, the American public is well accustomed to the concept of tissue and organ transplantation, as stories of life-saving heart and kidney transplants, or American Red Cross blood drives collecting blood and platelets for transfusions have become commonplace. Since these procedures typically require a transfer of tissue from one patient to another, physicians must be careful to choose well-matched donors to avoid rejection by the recipient’s immune system.

But what about other specialized tissues that can be affected by disease, such as those of the eye? A recent study published in the journal Stem Cells by Winston Kao and colleagues describes a method of tissue engineering using stem cells from hair follicles to treat patients suffering from a specific type of corneal disease. The study also provides a fascinating insight into the ways in which adult stem cell research is being used to advance the field of personalized medicine, a growing field which seeks to customize treatments based on the individual patient, especially in terms of genetics.

When stem cells are lost, so is the reservoir for new cells, and this can be a cause of disease in organs such as the human eye. The corneal epithelium, which covers the front of the cornea and protects it from the outside environment, requires limbal stem cells to replenish it, and limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) is associated with a loss of vision. If a patient suffers from LSCD in one eye, the most obvious solution is to use tissue from the healthy eye to repair the damage. However, when LSCD occurs in both eyes, an alternate source for stem cells is required.

In Kao’s study, stem cells were isolated from the hair follicles of adult mice, cultured into corneal epithelial cells, and successfully transplanted onto the eyes of mice in which the limbal stem cells had been removed. While this approach has not yet been tried in human patients, there is a great deal of confidence that the treatment will translate effectively. And there are several potential benefits to such treatment. First, it could be used in patients suffering from LSCD in both eyes. Second, the source of the cells would be the same patient, thus minimizing the potential for rejection of the transplanted tissue by the immune system. And third, the cells of the hair follicle share many commonalities with those of the corneal epithelium, including their origins in the developing embryo, which would seem to make them a promising choice for this type of treatment.

A qualification is in order: These findings have great potential to help only one specific group of patients suffering from bilateral LSCD, for whom there has been a lack of effective treatment thus far. Nevertheless, Kao’s report is but one of many detailing the advances being made using adult stem cells, both in isolation techniques and in potential therapeutic use. From a pro-life perspective, it is always good news when medical advances can be made without ethical compromise, and this is why the benefits of adult stem cell research are often cited by those seeking to argue against the use of human embryonic stem cell isolation, which requires the destruction of human embryos.

Yet such advances are not sufficient, either practically or morally , to address the problems with human embryonic stem cell research and potential therapies derived therefrom. Scientific research is done with specific goals in mind, but by design its results are not known until they have been obtained in a replicable manner; and although the contributions to medicine by adult stem cell research may dwarf those obtained in human embryonic stem cells, this fact might reasonably point to a “both-and” rather than an “either-or” attitude toward their use. That is, successes in adult stem cell research do not by themselves necessarily entail the abandonment of embryonic stem cell research, especially since the ephemeral “promise” of embryonic stem cell research is so deeply rooted in the minds of many advocates of the practice.

Solid ethical argument will be centered upon the recognition that some research methods disregard the dignity and integral good of the person while other methods uphold it. It is essential that the basis of our arguments against embryonic stem cell research be made primarily, if not exclusively, on the fact that innocent human life is taken. Evil acts must be rejected regardless of their real or potential efficacy in producing a desired effect. As Blessed John Paul II wrote in Veritatis Splendor , “Only the act in conformity with the good can be a path that leads to life.”

Still, in a culture in which the protection of life is such a contentious issue in healthcare and biomedical research, it is heartening to see examples of treatments emerging in which the life of one does not have to be taken for the treatment of another.

Rebecca Oas is a Fellow of HLI America, an educational initiative of Human Life International. She is also a postdoctoral fellow in the Cell Biology Department at Emory University. Her writings may be found on HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum .

RESOURCES

From hair to cornea: toward the therapeutic use of hair follicle-derived stem cells in the treatment of limbal stem cell deficiency. Meyer-Blazejewska EA, Call MK, Yamanaka O, Liu H, Schlötzer-Schrehardt U, Kruse FE, Kao WW. Stem Cells . 2011 Jan;29(1):57-66

Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor .

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