Medical Science at the Service of Life
How the question of stem cell research affected a mother’s choice
Camilla Gunnarson

Cyndi Peterson is a medical doctor and a mother of five children. Two of her children were born with a medically untreatable condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1. Medical Science has nothing to offer children with this fatal condition. Cyndi’s daughter, Kelly died at the age of 9 months, the average lifespan of those with this disease. Her daughter Sarah is 19 months old. The longest children live with this disease is 2 years.
           
As a doctor, and the mother of two ill children for whom medicine has nothing to offer, when she heard about stem cell research, she wanted to know if this could help her children in any way.
           
Cyndi is a faithful Roman Catholic. Her faith teaches that a human being is created at the moment of conception/fertilization.“Science teaches us the same thing. This is not disputable,” says Cyndi.
           
When confronted with the choice of life from another's death, Cyndi’s answer is simple: ‘No.’ As a medical doctor she is all too aware that embryonic stem cell research involves the deliberate destruction of a living human being and therefore directly contradicts the very purpose of medical science.
           
“We are being asked to make the decision: Is experimentation with the “possible” advances it may bring worth destroying human beings? ...Proponents of embryonic stem cell research are trying to blur the issue by using certain terms and phrases such as “well, it is not a person” and as Ron Reagan Jr. did in his speech before the Democratic National Convention, when
 he said (The cells used in this process) “have no fingers and toes, no brain or spinal cord …no thoughts, no fears.” Cyndi is quick to point out that, “This is false!”
           
She explains, “Because an embryo is not in the final form of a child, does not make it any less human. All the genetic material is in place. A unique human being is present. Left alone in its mother’s womb it will divide, differentiate and form into a baby in 9 months.  Everything about that unique baby is found at the one cell stage. Whether it is a boy or girl, how tall it will be, what hair color etc. We all learned the life cycle of the butterfly in the first grade.  The fact is:  you will never have any butterflies if you do away with the caterpillar stage, even if the caterpillar looks nothing like the butterfly.  You and I were all embryos.  All of our children were embryos.   The embryo is the earliest stage of the human life cycle.”
           
Cyndi wants people to realize that there has been a long history of real cures for many diseases involving ethical adult stem cell sources, such as bone marrow, fat, umbilical cord and placenta. “The fact is that adult stem cells have treated and cured literally tens of thousands of people from over 98-99 different diseases. And if you ask the question:  How many people have been cured of any disease using stem cells from embryos? The answer is exactly zero. The true cures are coming from adult and umbilical cord stem cells.”
           
Proponents of embryonic stem cell research often use the argument that this kind of  research is justifiable since it is conducted on “excess” or “spare” embryos left over from in vitro fertilization treatments and they are just going to throw them away anyway. But is there such thing as "excess" life?  Cyndi argues that, “This argument recognizes they are life, but that somehow being caught in a bad situation, such as being frozen, justifies even necessitates, experimentation. Some good must come out of this. This is the same logic used to allow human experimentation in Nazi Germany. The Jewish prisoners were just going to die anyway.  Let some good come out of their lives that could help others in the future. We cannot answer one problem with one that is equally evil.”
           
“I  love my daughter.  I would love to see her grow up.  But not at the destruction of another human being.  My daughter’s life is not more important than another’s…. whether it has fingers and toes or a spinal cord or not.”

Cyndi concludes:
            -We must help those who are suffering, but we cannot use a good end to justify an evil                         means. 
            -Treatments that do not require destroying human life are available. 
            -The choice is not between science and ethics, but between science that is ethically                         responsible and science that is not.

Cyndi Peterson's witness reminds us of the necessity of a consistent life ethic, respecting human life from the earliest moments to the final moments.
 
Camilla Gunnarson is the part-time editor of LifeCanada News.