Human Caviar

Friday, December 7. 2012

I thought I had heard just about every argument surrounding using human embryos in research. The other day I realized, I hadn't.

A friend of mine, who was reading Why Catholicism Matters by Dr. William Donohue, pointed out a passage where Dr. Donohue refers to a piece by Leon Kass, an ethicist of Jewish descent, called "The Meaning of Life in the Laboratory." Dr. Kass delves into the status of the human embryo and whether or not a human embryo is simply a "ball of cells" or something more. He writes this disturbing, but relevant passage:

On the other hand, we would, I suppose, recoil even from the thought, let alone the practice--I apologize for forcing it upon the reader--of eating such embryos, should someone discover that they would provide a great delicacy, a “human caviar.” The human blastocyst would be protected by our taboo against cannibalism, which insists on the humanness of human flesh and does not permit us to treat even the flesh of the dead as if it were mere meat. The human embryo is not mere meat; it is not just stuff; it is not a “thing.” Because of its origin and because of its capacity, it commands a higher respect.

Human caviar. A disgusting, repulsive and horrifying thought for pretty much everyone. Why? Because the human embryo is a human organism, just as we are, albeit very early in development.

Dr. Donohue, in commenting on Kass' analogy, states the obvious:

If the proponents of embryonic stem cell research were served human embryos as a delicacy, or human caviar, would they partake? If not, why not? Because of a natural aversion to cannibalism? Does that not concede the point made by the Catholic Church?

Indeed.

Posted by Rebecca Taylor in Human embryo at 09:03 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Nope - I am adverse to eating the flesh of a living man, but not adverse to testing it with his permission. You have to convince these people that the embryos are NOT part of the parent. Thus they need to get permission not from the parent, but from the human embryo.

#1 Christina on 2012-12-07 11:57 (Reply)

Just an FYI, in China human fetuses are sold to be eaten. They are considered a "youth potion" of sorts. No, I could NOT make this up. It was published in Newsweek years ago (about 10 years) in their expose on daily Chinese living. I will never forget reading it and my jaw dropping.

#2 doctormom4 on 2012-12-08 01:52 (Reply)

It's not exactly a "youth potion", and it's not "daily Chinese living" by any stretch of the imagination. It's a black-market thing even in Communist China, although it's only punished as desecrating remains, which carries a fine or a fairly brief jail time. The traditional punishment was being skinned alive—the practice is the Chinese version of a Black Mass, and witchcraft, like treason and immediate-family incest, was one of the few crimes punished with "slow slicing", AKA "Death by a Thousand Cuts".

See, there is a tradition that eating the flesh of a stillborn infant, the heart of a holy man, or the liver of a still-living virgin will make you a Taoist Immortal (a god, basically) without you having to pursue the very complicated ascetical practices of orthodox Taoist mystics. The cannibalism during the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward (that wasn't related to the famines) was tied to that belief, as was the cannibalism alleged to have been committed by the Japanese Imperial Army as part of their atrocities. Japan has the same superstition, it's called "ikigimo" there (literally, "surviving liver", after the liver-of-a-virgin thing).

#2.1 Tom in AZ on 2012-12-08 10:31 (Reply)

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