Stem Cell Research: The Slippery Slope Argument
Background
One of the concerns expressed over stem cell research is that it will lead us down a slippery slope, leading us into being a type of society that we can presently see is inherently bad. We start off taking a simple step. We allow stem cell research under very restricted conditions. However, we find that we have stepped onto a wet and muddy hillside, and discover to our horror that we have fallen to the bottom -- coated in a moral muck and grime that we should have avoided.
Specifically, the argument applies against the plan to take donated embryos that are produced as a result of modern fertility clinics. In techniques such as in-vitro fertilization, doctors produce more embryos than the patient couple can carry to maturity. They select one or two and use those to impregnate the patient. The others are discarded.
The argument is that we are discarding a very useful medical research. These embryos can be used to make stem cells, and stem cells show a great deal of promise in treating and curing a great many diseases. If a person suffers brain damage as a result of a stroke or accident, we may be able to use stem cells to repair that part of the brain. The patient will not get back lost memories, but may get back the ability to keep new memories. A heart-attack patient can have a damaged heart repaired. Stem cells injected into the spine may cure paralysis. Any damaged tissue in the body may be reparable using stem cells that then mature into functioning tissue.
However, the counter-argument asks about the permissibility of killing one person to save somebody else. Assume that a doctor has a ward full of patients that are dying from a disease. One patient has an antibody. With a normal transfusion from this one patient, the doctor can save one of the diseased individuals. However, if he takes all of this patient's blood, he can save 20 individuals.
Yet, clearly it is wrong for the doctor to kill this one innocent patient to save 20 others. Accordingly, it is argued that it is wrong to kill one embryo to save other lives.
Except, this embryo is already marked for death. It is going to be discarded. It will never become a living, breathing, human being.
The Slippery Slope
Here is where the slippery slope comes in.
If we begin by allowing these embryos to be used to create stem cells for medical research, then it is a short step from this to creating embryos for the purpose of creating stem cells for medical research. Why should doctors have to depend on the generosity of couples who have produced an embryo for other reasons that will be discarded, when they can make their own?
The doctors take these stem cells and perform their research, allowing them to mature, to determine if they can be caused to mature into replacement brain, heart, or spinal tissue. Let us say that embryos are allowed to mature along normal lines for 5 days. Why not go for 6 days? Then, 7 days?
Here, we start down the slippery slope. We add one day at a time -- neither day that we add is much different than the day before, until we are creating fetuses for no purpose other than to perform medical experiments on them.
Of course, if we continue down this slope there is no clear stopping place. Are we at risk, perhaps, of creating 10-year-old children for the purpose of using them as medical guinea pigs? Are we heading for a society where biotech firms have communities of people in different stages of development that exist only for the purpose of being subjects of the company's experiments.
If you are standing on the stop of a slippery slope, it is best not to approach too closely to the edge -- because once you fall, you cannot stop yourself. The best option is to stay away from the edge, where it is safe, where there is no risk of falling. The Geography of the Slippery Slope
The first question to ask is, "How slippery is this slope anyway?" What are the chances that, if we take this one step and allow the use of embryos, that our descendents will actually end up using 7-month old fetuses in medical research? How far forward can we step before we are actually on the edge?
The slippery slope really is not a slope at all. It is a flat and level field going out for quite some distance. Something that has no desires (and will have no desires) cannot be harmed. A car can be used in a movie stunt without wronging the car. A carpenter can pound nails into a board without wronging the nails or the board. The reason is because these are just things. They have no desires or wants of their own, and so no wrong can be done to them.
Medical practitioners can tell us when a fetus starts to develop a brain -- and, with that, starts to become a being with desires. The moment this happens, the fetus goes from being a mere thing to a being that can be wronged. This is the point, beyond which we must not travel.
Asked when, exactly, that is, I can answer that it is not important that we know. If we can reliably determine a time days or weeks before the brain starts to develop, then we can say, "do not go beyond this point." The concept is much like that of putting a rope a few feet before the edge of the Grand Canyon to prevent tourists from getting so close to the edge that they endanger themselves. A few feet away from the edge makes sense. Stringing that same rope across central Texas, on the other hand, would be an absurdity.
The Physics of the Slippery Slope
The slippery slope argument actually requires two assumptions that are self-defeating.
First, the slippery slope argument begins with the assumption that there is nothing in itself wrong with the act that is being prohibited. We are being asked to imagine a hillside, where the top of the hill is the moral high ground, and the bottom of the hill is a moral sewage. The slippery slope argument accepts that the first step, the step being prohibited, is on the moral high ground. It is not wrong in itself. However, those who take this step suffer a risk of slipping into the moral sewer below.
Second, the slippery slope argument assumes that we can tell the difference between the moral high ground and the moral sewer. The force of the argument depends on our ability to recognize that falling down the slope would put us clearly within a moral sewer that is best avoided.
If we take these two assumptions -- that the act in question is on the moral high ground, and we can clearly distinguish it from the moral sewer we are told we may fall into, then we have to ask: How slippery is this slope anyway? What reason is there to believe that future generations are somehow going to lose the ability to grasp the distinction between the moral high ground and the moral sewer that we claim to be able to easily recognize?
If the slope is not so slippery, we can dismiss the risk alleged risk that we may end up where the person using the slippery slope argument says we may end up.
Risk
A third feature of the slippery slope argument to keep in mind is that it speaks of the risk of ending up in the moral sewer. Yet, this must be measured against the certainty of suffering that would result from our decision.
Imagine that your child were sick or dying. Reaching involves risk. Yet, not reaching means that the child will continue to suffer, and perhaps die. How far would you reach onto that slope in order to retrieve a plant that can be used to save her life? More importantly, how far should a morally concerned parent reach to get the medicine that can save her child?
In this case, we can mitigate against the risk. We simply need to recognize that we cannot go near the edge where the embryo becomes a fetus with a brain. We say, "beyond that, we cannot go", and even say "near that, we cannot go, so that we do not risk stepping beyond that point." It is the moral equivalent of the parent who must reach for a life-saving plant tying himself off first and handing the rope to his friends, so that he will not fall down the slippery slope.
Irrational Fear
There is no slippery slope.
There is, instead, a clearly marked drop off where we cannot go at the point where the embryo develops into a being with a brain. We can, and probably should, mark off the edge of this precipice to keep ourselves safely on the near side of the cliff -- days or weeks before a fetus will start to develop a brain.
That line still rests in a location that would allow us to obtain many of the benefits that stem cell research promises.
In the mean time, good people are being denied the quality and the quantity of life that they could otherwise be enjoying.