Poetic Biology and Stem Cells

From LifeDate - Fall 2005.

Poetic Biology and Stem Cells
by Rev. Dr. James I. Lamb, Executive Director, Lutherans For Life

The Bible is not a biology book. The Bible was written to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”

(2 Timothy 3:15). That does not mean, however, that the Holy Spirit is clueless when it comes to biology. Psalm 139 gives us some poetic biology that is fundamental in determining where we stand as Christians when it comes to the use of embryonic stem cells.

Reading the poetry of Psalm 139 can be a little frightening because you quickly realize God knows all about you! He knows where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and what you’re going to say before you say it (v.1-4)! You also realize that there is no place you can go to escape this all-knowing God (v.7).

But God is not watching you as some “Big Brother in the sky” but as your Creator. God knows you because He made you. “For You created my inmost being” (v.13). Here David uses very intimate language. “Created my inmost being” is a Hebrew idiom that could be translated, “You made my kidneys”! The kidneys were the last organs removed in the sacrificial process. They denote the very depth of who you are—your “inmost being.” Clearly, God was intimately involved in making you who you are from the beginning.

Next David uses delicate language. “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (v.13). “Knit” means to “cover” or “fence in.” There is a progression. God created you, your very essence (your inmost being), and then wove or knitted a covering for “you”—your body. This also seems to confirm the biological process for procreation that God established. You were uniquely “you” at the moment of your conception. Your genetic make up, your “inmost being” was there. Cell division begins and your “covering”—your body—develops.

When stem cells are taken from human embryos, this poetic biology comes to an untimely stop. To put it less poetically, when stem cells are taken from a human embryo, a human being, a little girl or a little boy, dies. This is fundamental biology and yet it must be denied by those favoring embryonic stem cell research.

It is denied in the “size” argument. “The embryo destroyed for its stem cells is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.” Oh how I tire of this ill-used phrase. Every human being, including anyone writing that phrase, was once that small. Regardless of size, it is someone not something that is destroyed when stem cells are taken.

The humanity of the embryo is denied in the “therapeutic” argument. “Embryonic stem cells hold the potential to cure devastating diseases.” This is a true statement although there have been no cures to date and none really expected for a decade at least. But even if a cure were found tomorrow, killing human beings to cure human beings is not a moral option.

The humanity of the embryo is denied in the “good as dead” argument. This is the argument that even some who claim to be “pro-life” have used. “These embryos in fertility clinics are going to die anyway. Why not use them to preserve life in others?” But we don’t talk about harvesting body parts from inmates on death row or little girls and boys with terminal cancer in order to preserve life in others.

Christians, beware of being led astray by such rhetoric. We are better served and serve better when we are tuned to the poetry of God.

“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13).