A "Gun" That Heals?

I was amazed when I watched a National Geographic video featuring a device called the “Skin Gun.” The video documents the true story of a police officer whose arm and face were charred with second degree burns during a bonfire accident. While in the emergency room, he is told he qualifies for a stem cell treatment. Within 90 minutes the officer’s stem cells are extracted and sprayed on his burns. Three days later his skin is completely healed and unblemished. You would never guess he was ever burned!

I’ve read about young children who also received treatment using their own stem cells, resulting in a drastic reduction of their cerebral palsy symptoms. Some children diagnosed with Type I diabetes are no longer needing insulin treatments after receiving stem cell treatments. But should all of these stem cell treatments be legal?

My answer is “Yes.” Why? All of these treatments came from adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are derived from specific parts of a born human being’s body in a way that doesn’t kill her. They are derived from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood. Although the potential for these stem cells to develop into any type of cell may be limited, they can do some amazing things in specific areas of the body. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, are pluripotent, which means they can theoretically be manipulated to turn into any type of human cell. The ethical problem with embryonic stem cell research is that human embryos are killed in order to harvest these stem cells.

Even though embryos are killed, potentially millions of lives could be bettered from embryonic stem cell treatments. Would this justify embryonic stem cell research? The problem with this argument is that it assumes that embryos are not valuable. Suppose toddlers had pluripotent cells in their bodies that could only be harvested by killing the toddler. We would never kill toddlers, even if it was just a few of them, to harvest their stem cells and produce treatments. Because human life begins at conception, killing humans in the embryonic stage is just as wrong as killing humans in the toddler stage.

The purpose of scientific treatment is to protect and preserve life. It doesn’t make sense to kill tiny humans so we can help larger humans.


Embryonic stem cell research’s problems are not just ethical. Dr. Diane Irving, a biochemist formerly with the National Cancer Institute, says, “I have argued that adult stem cells are better because they are closer to the stage of differentiation than embryonic or fetal cells - therefore they do not have as long a distance to travel differentiation-wise as the younger cells. Therefore there is far less of a chance for genetic errors to be accumulated in the implanted cells and less side effects for the patient to deal with." 1

Dr. Irving is referring to the very high rate of teratomas, or cancerous growths, that occur after a subject is injected with embryonic stem cells. For example, a man in China had embryonic stem cells injected into his brain to treat Parkinson’s disease. Teratomas formed, creating hair and bone in his brain, eventually killing him. 2

As it happens though, adult stem cell research can accomplish many medical treatments, but without killing human beings. There are at least 72 different adult stem cell treatments and therapies currently in use with human patients.3 These treatments are helping humans live better lives and there aren’t ethical problems with using these treatments.




Thank you for partnering with me in my work at Justice For All. I love being able to mentor our staff and volunteers and also grow intellectually on current topics like stem cell research. Your support enables me to help other pro-life advocates better understand these complicated issues.



1 Gallagher, M., “Adult Stem Cell Research May Hold Promise for Diabetes Cure,” www.Lifenews.com (March 26, 2004)

2 Folkerth, R., et al., “Survival and proliferation of nonneural tissues, with obstruction of cerebral ventricles, in a parkinsonian patient treated with fetal allografts.” Neurology, Volume 46, Issue 5. (May 1, 1996)

3 Prentice, D., “Benefits of Stem Cells to Human Patients,” Do No Harm Website (April 11, 2007) [http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm]

"But it’s not a person YET…"

Looking at Madeline, I coo and lift my chin. Madeline copies me, lifting her chin and making a coo that sounds almost identical. We do this about ten times together; I change the pitch and she follows, mimicking the direction I move my head while cooing. She is doing all of this and her birth was just weeks ago! I think the unborn are just as precious and innocent as Madeline, but many pro-choice advocates would argue that the unborn differ from Madeline in ways that disqualify them from having a right to life.



It is true that there are differences between unborn children and newborns, and some of those differences exist to a great degree. In his book, The Moral Question of Abortion, Philosopher Stephen Schwartz identified these differences with the handy acronym SLED. The differences are:

• Size
• Level of Development
• Environment and
• Degree of Dependency

It’s obvious that the unborn differ from newborns like Madeline in these ways, but should we conclude that they are “not human yet” or “potential persons?”

At first glance, it might seem like we should. After all, early in development the unborn is only as big as the period at the end of this sentence and doesn’t have a developed nervous system. The unborn are smaller in Size and have a lower Level of Development. But this is also true of newborn children like Madeline. Madeline is less developed and much smaller than we are. (It’s comical how small she is on our bed.) Yet we all agree that Madeline has the same right to life as we do.

When a pro-choice advocate argues that the unborn isn’t a valuable human yet, the reason will probably fall into one of the four SLED categories. To respond, follow these steps:

1. Affirm that the difference does exist.

2. Ask why that difference matters or changes our value.

3. Show that the difference isn’t morally relevant since it also applies to already-born people. We should lovingly point this out.

When I talked with “Michael” at Auraria (Dialogue below Abraham Lincoln Quote) I was able to point out that he was disqualifying the unborn for some of the reasons in the SLED Test. I agreed with him that the unborn are different from us, and I showed that those differences also apply to newborns.


Thank you for partnering with me to help Michael rethink his views about abortion. Hopefully he will continue to think about our conversation and change his mind. After he said he needed some time to think, we talked about our personal lives. I told him Madeline was due to be born in just a few weeks. Michael said he hoped to be a dad one day. Let’s pray that Michael will come to see the same value in unborn children as he sees in newborns like Madeline.









P.S.



THE DANGER OF “PERSONHOOD” ARGUMENTS



The SLED Test helps us respond to pro-choice arguments that disqualify unborn children from the right to life because they are different from us. This is not the first time arguments like these have been used.

Abraham Lincoln responded to similar arguments in his day:

"You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

"You do not mean color exactly?--You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own."

“Fragment on Slavery” (July 1, 1854)

My Dialogue with Michael

In April I was at Auraria State in Denver. I was mentoring several volunteers and engaged in a conversation with an Auraria student named “Michael.” I was able to use the SLED Test to show why his reasons for disqualifying the unborn weren’t good ones, and the danger in trying to do so. You can read our conversation below and on the next page.


Michael: I don’t even get you guys and why you waste so much time. You’re getting worked up over something the size of a period!

Me: I agree with you that the unborn are really small, especially when they are compared to adults. But infants are also really small when compared to adults. Humans vary in size. Size doesn’t seem relevant to our value.

Michael: What I mean is that the unborn can’t think or have any emotions when it’s that small. It doesn’t even know it exists, much less that it’s being killed.

Me: I agree with you that the unborn doesn’t have emotions until a certain point, and isn’t self-aware, but why do these things matter?

Michael: Because those are what make us human, man!

Me: The unborn are less developed than we are, but toddlers are less developed than we are too. If our value is based on our level of development, then those who are geniuses would have a greater right to life than those who are not so smart. But that doesn’t make sense.

Michael: Why not?

Me: Because we recognize that all humans have an equal right to life. No one has a greater right to life than another. This must mean that we all share something equally. I think it’s that we have a human nature, and all humans, from conception on, have a human nature.

Michael: But it’s not a person!

Me: But the word person is really problematic. Historically it’s been used to disqualify certain groups of humans so we could abuse or kill them. I’m thinking of Native Americans, African Americans, and women. I’m not saying that those who are pro-choice are like slave owners, just that the same argument was used then too.

Michael: But that’s different. We know a black man is a human being. He’s living and breathing on his own. The unborn isn’t doing any of that. [Level of Development]

Me: True, but my point is that in the past some humans had no rights because they had a different degree of skin color. Could varying degrees of “Level of Development” be an equally bad argument?

*Pause*

Michael: I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.

Welcome Baby McKinley! It's a...

Dear Friends,

Maureen and I would like to share one of the most special events in our lives with you. On May 3, 2011, Maureen gave birth to Madeline Rose McKinley. She weighed in at 8lb, 6oz and measured 20.5 inches long.

One of our goals was to have a natural child birth without pain medication. We both did a lot of preparation by going to classes, eating right, and exercising. When maureen went into labor I took on my role as her coach and helped her for all 21 hours. Maureen was so relaxed that she was able to sleep between contractions. Maureen displayed great strength and grace, and we accomplished our goal.

As my daughter was born, it was incredible to watch her physiological needs change. Madeline went from receiving oxygen through her umbilical cord to using her lungs in just seconds. Even though I knew this was going to happen, it was still astonishing for me. IN my work I talk about the development of unborn children all the time with students, but seeing it first-hand with my own daughter through sonograms and birth gave me a deeper appreciation and love for unborn children. It is hard to find the appropriate words to describe such an event. Perhaps the pictures I've included will do a better job!

Madeline has a great temperament, but we could still use prayers for sleep, especially as I will begin summer school soon. Please pray that I can balance caring for Maureen, Madeline, work, and class. Thank you for being a part of our lives and welcoming with is the newest member of Team McKinley!

Blessings,

Matt McKinley

Fortitudine Vincimus

We only had eight hours to create a website without any professional help. Do you think it’s possible?

While I was working on this project I imagine I felt a lot like Sir Ernest Shackleton did when he encountered unexpected problems. Shackleton wanted to be the first man to reach the South Pole but someone beat him to it. He then devised a more ambitious goal: Traverse Antarctica by land from coast to coast (an 1,800 mile journey). Misfortune struck Shackleton’s crew when his ship, Endurance, was frozen in ice (picture below) and had to be abandoned. Shackleton had to change his entire strategy and his new goal was to keep all of his crew alive.

After almost 500 days, they rowed in small life boats to a tiny, uninhabited island. Shackleton’s crew found temporary refuge on the small island, but they were still in mortal danger and needed to find rescue. Fortunately, all of Shackleton’s 55 crew members were still alive. Shackleton even gave his gloves to a crew member who lost his. The servant-leader suffered frostbite as a result.

Shackleton took five men with him in a small lifeboat to another island to find help. In their tiny boat, they braved hurricane-force winds without capsizing, even though a 500-ton steamer was sunk in the same storm. They then climbed a mountain for 36 hours without sleep, before finally sliding down a 2,000 foot drop and making it to safety. In the end, every one of his men survived.

It’s fitting that Shackleton’s family motto was Fortitudine Vincimus - "By Endurance We Conquer."

Building a website wasn’t a life or death experience for my team, but we did face some of the same dynamics Shackleton’s team did.

In 2007, Justice For All made the final steps to transition from a show-and-tell organization to a training organization. We used to focus primarily on showing our exhibit on college campuses, but now we are mentoring thousands of people every year to be pro-life ambassadors who use the exhibit to make their case against abortion.

Originally created in the early 2000’s, our website did not reflect this change and desperately needed a redesign. I was the project leader for the redesign team. I started working on the redesign in 2008 with a designer, but things didn’t work out. Then we worked with a professional company, but again, things fell through for reasons out of my control.

Three years passed and we still had the same website. This was pretty frustrating, and after awhile I stopped giving the project priority. My boss, Steve Wagner, encouraged me to get the process going again, and we devised a very ambitious and bold plan.

Four team members would create the entire webpage in only eight hours.

In order to accomplish this, we had to clearly define our expectations and intermediary goals. The new website was to be as simple as possible so long as it still communicated our message. Anything fancy had to go or be put on a list for the future. We used an Apple program called iWeb to quickly create the site.

Eight hours later, we had a nearly complete website. We didn’t reach our initial goal, but we had finished about 90% of the 11 pages we thought we needed. The next several days consisted of grammar editing and fine-tuning on the design, along with the creation of six additional pages.

I learned a lot by leading my team. I spent time with my team members before the actual creation of the pages to implement a strategy and a schedule that would keep us on track but also allow for unexpected problems. But the primary reason we were able to accomplish our goal was simply hard work. My team members all had their own genius to contribute, and I’m very proud of the work we did. Fortitudine Vincimus!

My Challenge for You: Will you share our new website with at least two friends and ask them to consider supporting me? Send them to www.jfaweb.org and ask them to go to the Meet The Mentors page. They can learn more about my professional work and hobbies and even financially support me. I’m currently at 64% of my support level and really working hard to get to 100% support. I appreciate your help!

Thank you,
Matt Mckinley

Does the Unborn Become a Human in the Third Trimester?

“When a woman has an abortion early in pregnancy she's not killing a human being; a potential human being is being killed. Imagine I have all the ingredients to make a cake but I haven't mixed them or baked it. I only have a cake when I've baked it, just like how you only have a human being when they're complete, or born.”

- Student at a Justice For All training seminar sharing a pro-choice argument that stumped her.

After my colleague David Lee gave a pro-life presentation in a small church, “Hanley” wanted to privately share his story. Hanley’s friend, "Amelia," was going to have an abortion. Hanley told Amelia why abortion was wrong and tried to convince her not to have one. Amelia listened, but made Hanley promise that he wouldn't tell anyone. He didn’t. After Amelia had the abortion, Hanley felt like he had done everything he could. David asked Hanley to imagine Amelia contemplating killing her two-year-old brother. Would he still keep her decision a secret? Even though Hanley would call himself pro-life, he realized he was treating unborn children and born children differently.

This got me thinking. Amelia was in the first trimester of her pregnancy. I wonder if Hanley would have kept Amelia’s decision a secret if she had been in the third trimester.

Richard Stith at Valparaiso University wrote an article titled Arguing with Pro-Choicers in First Things that really helped me understand why so many people don't consistently act pro-life, especially regarding first trimester abortions like Amelia’s. Many people, pro-life and pro-choice, believe that the unborn child is like a cake being baked or a car on an assembly line. With a car, you start out with a frame, add an engine, then seats, then a bumper, and you keep adding parts until you have a completed car.

Imagine a Corvette was being built on an assembly line and only the wheels and axle were in place. The pro-choice advocate sees the killing of an unborn child as similar to destroying these basic parts of the Corvette. It's unfortunate, but no one can get upset and scream that you destroyed a Corvette. It’s just an axle and some wheels.

Similarly, many pro-choice activists think people shouldn't be upset that the "basic parts" of a human being were destroyed through abortion. This helps explain why 84% of Americans are opposed to third trimester abortions, because for them the majority of the human being is constructed by that point in time. In the third trimester, it would be like destroying a Corvette that is only missing a windshield. This makes sense...if the unborn child is constructed like a car on an assembly line. But is it?

The unborn child, or any organism for that matter, is not like a car. While it may seem like a heart is being "added" to the unborn child, then a brain, then lungs, and so on, the organs aren’t added. The human being before and after birth goes through a different process altogether. The process is more like that of a Polaroid photo. Once you take a picture with a Polaroid camera, the camera spits out a black square. While all the contents of the picture are on that black square, we can't see them yet. The Polaroid photo needs time to develop. Similarly, unborn children (as well as born children) just need time, adequate nutrition, and a safe environment in order to develop.

Imagine you captured a breathtaking view of Niagara Falls with your Polaroid camera, and your friend, standing next to you, sees the undeveloped photo. He then says "That's just an ugly black smear!" and tears it up. You would justifiably be outraged because he destroyed your picture. Let’s return to the Corvette assembly line where only the wheels and axle have been constructed. Imagine your friend grabs a sledgehammer and destroys the wheels and bends the axle. You would not be correct in telling him that he just destroyed a Corvette. He only destroyed parts that would have been used in the construction of a Corvette.

What's the difference? Objects that are constructed, like Corvettes, are no more than the sum of their parts. If you take a part away, or forget to add it, you may not have the object. That’s why during the construction process it’s hard to determine when a Corvette exists. Is it when you have a running motor or when you have all the seats installed?

Organisms, however, are a different sort of object because they are not constructed. They retain their identity throughout their existence despite changes. Unlike a car or cake, it’s easy to identify when an organism comes into existence. With human organisms, we come into existence at conception. Nothing essential is added after this point. It would be very odd to say someone else or something else existed in your mother’s womb, and you later came into existence when you were born. The ability to retain one’s identity despite changes continues after birth. If Peter loses his arm and is given a prosthetic arm, he is still Peter, even though his body underwent a major change.

The good news is that every JFA training event teaches students the difference between developing organisms and constructed objects. With our tools, students can reject the idea that human beings are constructed like cakes or cars and start caring for the unborn from conception. After learning this key difference, I’m confident they won’t make the same mistake Hanley did.

Your support enables me to teach students this material and then mentor them as they practice it with real college students at exhibit outreaches. Thank you for your prayers and support!

Matt McKinley

I was interviewed on the radio!

You can listen to the hour long radio interview with me and the fine gentlemen at Casting Nets online.

Click here and look for the link "Roe Vs. Wade with 'Justice For All'"

Right click on the link and save as then open it with any media player.

Thanks for listening!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

“The only difference between pro-lifers and the Taliban is 8,000 miles!” I shouted at Maureen, as an Arizona audience listened.* What could possibly motivate me to shout at my wife, especially in front of a crowd?

Maureen and I were training a group of 25 people and were modeling three types of conversations for the group: good, bad, and ugly. I was playing the pro-choice position, and while my statement was harsh, Maureen, who was playing the pro-life position, was equally annoying.

It’s easy to spot an ugly conversation. Maureen and I interrupted each other, we traded insults, and the “conversation” turned into a shouting match. Many conversations are not as obviously ugly, but they're still bad...and they're much more common.

In our “bad conversation,” Maureen and I weren’t raising our voices or interrupting each other, but something was very wrong. Maureen didn’t find any common ground with me, even though she had an easy opportunity. There are women in our country who are really poor. Also, while it’s true that there are many parents willing to adopt, we shouldn’t assume that it’s easy for a mother to place her child in an adoptive home, even though that child will probably receive lots of love if they are adopted. Worst of all, Maureen wasn’t really listening to me. Even though Maureen made two valid points in her last paragraph, her manner made it nearly impossible for me to take them seriously. That’s why we made sure to also model what a good conversation looks like:

What a difference! Maureen listened to my concerns, asked questions instead of making statements, and built common ground first before moving to points of disagreement. When we disagreed, we did so respectfully.

Seeing pro-life advocates have good conversations about abortion is my passion, and your support has helped me train hundreds of pro-life advocates this year. Thank you for your support!

Blessings,

Matt McKinley

*This is an actual quote from Dr. Hern, an abortion doctor, during an interview on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC in June 2009.