You're pro-choice on abortion, and you figure the logical result of that position is that you should support embryonic stem cell research, human cloning for research, and biotechnology in general. What I want to do is get you to think more carefully about the logic of heading in that direction, and how far you're willing to go in that direction.

This was first presidential campaign in which biotechnology, specifically embryonic stem cell research, became a top-tier, mainstream issue. John Kerry talked about it routinely at campaign stops. His campaign devoted two major speeches and two of his weekly radio addresses to it, they made an ad about it, and they featured it at the Democratic convention, where it was mentioned about 20 to 30 times, including in a prime-time speech by Ron Reagan.

Why did they do this? Because stem cell research, unlike abortion, was a big political winner for them. They not only polled the issue, they bragged about it. Here's a July 26 memo from Kerry pollster Mark Mellman: "In our survey over the last three nights, 69% of voters support stem cell research, including many Republicans."

Why is stem cell research , unlike abortion, a big winner? Because it scores higher in a utilitarian calculus.

Here's the argument as presented before the election by Michael Kinsley in the New Republic: "Abortion doesn't fully test the premise that human life and moral equality with every other human life begin at conception. On one side, you have a fetus, several weeks or months along from conception, with perhaps the beginnings of real human characteristics: tiny arms and legs, rudimentary brains. … On the other side, you have something serious at stake for an indisputable human being [the woman], but it is usually something less than life. … The stem-cell controversy is different. On one side is not a fetus some distance along the way to birth, but an embryo just days after conception. You need a microscope to see it. … This time, human life is at stake on the other side. And not just a single human life, but potentially many, if stem-cell research realizes its potential."

There's a crucial fallacy in this argument, and it's a fallacy that many liberals and conservatives are falling prey to. Not all morality can be reduced to quantifying and weighing things against each other. The argument for the right to abortion is not just that the woman outweighs the fetus, but that the fetus is INSIDE the woman. It's an argument for AUTONOMY. It doesn't say that the rights of some OTHER woman outweigh the life of the fetus. It says that the rights of THIS woman outweigh the fetus, because SHE's the one in whom the fetus resides.

The argument for embryonic stem cell research is fundamentally different. The embryo that would theoretically be killed to save somebody's life is NOT inside that person's body. That person has NO autonomy claim over the embryo. It's purely a UTILITARIAN argument. It says you can end one life because another life is mathematically more important.

Now here's the crucial thing about these two principles. Autonomy is an inherently limited principle. You're only entitled to kill the fetus in your own body. So on this principle, it would take a million women to kill a million fetuses, and if you're a fetus, only one person has the right to kill you.

Utility is an inherently UNLIMITED principle. If one life is more important than another life, ANYONE has the right to take the first life to save the second. Everything is fair game, and nothing is sacred.

The most disturbing thing about the stem cell debate is that people on BOTH SIDES of the abortion debate, who came INTO the abortion debate as defenders of individual rights - either the rights of the woman or the rights of the fetus - are joining forces in the stem cell debate NOT as defenders of individual rights, but as advocates of utility. Let me give you two examples.

Here's a memo from NARAL Pro-Choice America, 11/16/04: "We were also pleased that California passed its ballot initiative funding stem cell research - a clear repudiation both of Bush's policy in that area and the anti-choice premise that embryos deserve legal protection over and above all other interests."

So here we see pro-choice leaders endorsing embryonic stem cell research to make sure embryos remain less valued than the women who carry them.

And here's Sen. Orrin Hatch: "Regenerative medicine is pro-life and pro-family; it fully enhances, not diminishes, human life." … "a critical part of being pro-life is to support measures that help the living."

So here's a pro-life leader redefining the meaning of "pro-life." For Hatch, it means doing whatever you have to do to an embryo to save someone else's life.

Now, what happened in 2004, both in the presidential race and in the campaign for Proposition 71 in California to fund embryonic stem cell research, was the debut of this utilitarian argument as a powerful campaign message.

At a speech in Denver in June, John Kerry said, "By supporting stem cell therapy … Not only can we reduce the economic cost of healthcare, we can reduce the emotional and social cost to families." And a Kerry campaign ad in October said, "There's no time to wait. At stake are millions of lives."

The campaign for Proposition 71 made the same arguments. In his October statement endorsing the proposition, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "California has always been a pioneer. We daringly led the way for the high-tech industry and now voters can help ensure we lead the way for the bio-tech industry. … We are the world's bio-tech leader and Proposition 71 will help ensure that we maintain that position while saving lives in the process." And a campaign ad said, "Stem cell research can end the pain and the suffering of so many people."

So that's the argument: save lives, save money, and make money. Now, what's going to limit these utilitarian pursuits? What principle is going to stop them from running amok?

Well, President Bush has one answer. This is what he said in August 2001, shortly after he decided NOT to fund research on future embryonic stem cell lines: "The ethics of medicine are not infinitely adaptable. There is at least one bright line: We do not end some lives for the medical benefit of others."

Now that is a clear limit on the principle of utility. What did Kerry say about that line? Here's what he said in a speech in Ohio on October 21": By blocking stem cell research, President Bush has sacrificed stem cell science to ideology."

Ideology was basically Kerry's word for morality with teeth, morality that might get in the way of stem cell science.

So what was Kerry's solution to the danger of utilitarianism run amok? Well, his answer was what Sheldon warned against: Kerry promised to be cautious, thoughtful, and morally concerned.

Here's what Kerry said in a radio address on June 1: "We must look to the future not with fear, but with the hope and the faith that advances in medicine will advance our best values. … I know there are ethical issues, but people of goodwill and good sense can resolve them. … If we pursue the limitless potential of our stem cell science - and trust that we can use it wisely - we will save millions of lives."

And here's what he said in Denver a week later: "[We] need to tear down every wall today that keeps us from finding the cures of tomorrow. I have full faith that our stem cell scientists will go forward with a moral compass-with humane values and sound ethics guiding the way. If we pursue the limitless potential of stem cell science- and trust that we can use it wisely - we will save millions of lives."

Basically, Kerry said that stem cell science would provide its OWN ethics. stem cell science, medicine, and technology would limit THEMSELVES.

Let's see whether that's true. What I'm going to do now is just read to you from a series of news reports over the past four years, about new utilitarian frontiers in biotechnology. Listen to each one and ask yourself the question Sheldon was asking at the end of his talk: where will stem cell science, technology, and the principle of utility stop - and where would YOU stop?

Here's the Washington Post on January 4, 2002: "Stem cell scientists for the first time have created genetically engineered pigs whose organs lack a gene that triggers rejection by the human immune system, a key advance toward the goal of developing high-tech hogs bearing organs for transplantation into humans."

Here's the New York Times on November 27 of that year: "A group of American and Canadian biologists is debating whether to recommend stem cell experiments that would involve creating a human-mouse hybrid. The goal would be to test different lines of human embryonic stem cells for their quality and potential usefulness in treating specific diseases. The best way to do that, some biologists argue, is to see how the cells work in a living animal."

Here's the Washington Post, August 14, 2003: "Some mice, for example, have been endowed with human brain cells or portions of the human immune system for research."

Here's the Times again, on August 8, 2004: "Researchers at the University of Munich repeated the experiment 70 times: a healthy volunteer would receive a chemical injection, then be left alone to ride out an artificially induced panic attack. From the next room, doctors watched the volunteer's restlessness via video camera, measured the quickening pulse and rise in blood pressure, and used an intercom to question the person about his or her feelings of impending doom. The attacks typically lasted 5 to 10 minutes. … In the past, many of the tests might have been done only on animals. … stem cell scientists and industry executives, while acknowledging the potential for ethical issues, say that experiments on people are more reliable, because animal tests often fail to accurately predict whether a drug will work on people."

There's more. Consider this from the Times on June 2, 2004 addressing the wider range and earlier use of prenatal tests: "Dr. Jonathan Lanzkowsky, an obstetrician affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, described one woman who had been born with an extra finger …Detecting the extra digit through early ultrasounds, she has terminated two pregnancies so far … Other doctors said that they had seen couples terminate pregnancies for poor vision, whose effect they had witnessed on a family member, or a cleft palate …"

The Washington Post, June 14, 2003: "Australian fertility doctors say they have used a genetic test to stem cell research een out embryos that carried a gene for deafness -- the first known instance of pre-selecting embryos to eliminate a non-life-threatening trait. … some of the embryos initially stem cell research eened out would not turn out to be deaf, but would only have carried the gene that increased the odds of having deaf offspring."

The Post again, December 2, 2002: "[In] A fertile farming state just west of New Delhi, … The 2001 census found just 820 girls for every 1,000 boys among children under age 6, down from 879 in 1991. The lopsided sex ratio reflects the spread of modern medical technology, particularly ultrasound exams, which allow Indian couples to indulge a cultural preference for sons by using abortion to avoid having girls. … As noted in a recent UNICEF study, [in] South Asia … 74 million women are 'simply missing.'"

And again the Post, May 29, 2001: "Figures released this year as part of China's census show there are 117 boys born for every 100 girls. In heavily rural areas such as Guangxi, where boys are prized because of their value for farm work and because they inherit the land, the numbers approach 140 boys for every 100 girls."

You may have heard of the case of six-year old Molly Nash. Here's the story in the Post on June 30, 2001: "Molly Nash, 6, who was dying of Fanconi anemia, an inherited blood disease. Her parents, Lisa and Jack Nash of Englewood, Colo., had set out to create a sibling bone marrow donor for Molly, undergoing four cycles of in vitro fertilization to make a total of 30 embryos with Lisa's eggs and Jack's sperm. Using technology largely developed by Mark Hughes, a former National Institutes of Health geneticist, stem cellientists in Illinois had tested one cell from each of the 30 embryos and found that five of the embryos were free of the disease gene and also perfect tissue-type matches for Molly. … Lisa gave birth to a boy, Adam. Soon after he was born, doctors transfused some of his blood cells into Molly's veins."

Now listen to this report from Associated Press, May 5, 2004. It's the same scenario, but now there's no screening for inherited disease, the embryos are weeded out purely for utility: "A Chicago laboratory helped create five healthy babies through in vitro fertilization so that they could serve as stem-cell donors for their ailing brothers and sisters. The infants, from different families, were stem cell research eened and selected when they were still embryos to make sure they would be compatible donors. … This is the first time embryo tissue-typing has been done for common disorders such as leukemia that are not inherited … The Chicago doctors said the healthy embryos that were not matches were frozen for potential future use. But some ethicists said such perfectly healthy embryos could end up being discarded."

What about allowing markets in human tissues for the sake of utility? Here's the Washington Post on April 30, 2002: "Women who donate their eggs for in vitro fertilization are paid as much as $75,000 in some areas of the country."

Here' s the Los Angeles Times on March 9, 2000. Now it's not eggs but fetuses: "The price list is macabre: Fetal eyes cost $75 apiece, pituitary glands go for $300 and brains fetch $999. Almost as distem celloncerting are researchers' orders for livers, thymuses, tracheas and spleens. Nobody quarrels with the goals of the tissue research--to find cures for the likes of Alzheimer's disease, juvenile diabetes and Parkinson's disease. But the medical promise is running into trouble as some businesses are beginning to look at supplying fetal tissue as a money maker. … asked how much he charged for fetal liver or kidney, [one entrepreneur] replied: "It's market forces. It's what you can sell it for." … In subsequent comments on the television report, [this entrepreneur] also made it clear that he advocated coercing women into consenting to donate the tissue."

This story, from the Washington Post on April 30, 2002, takes us from fetuses to organs: "Speakers at the meeting cited evidence that an international trade in organs from living donors is flourishing even though most countries ban the sale of organs. The black market price for a healthy kidney ranges from $1,000 in Bombay to $3,000 in the Republic of Moldova to more than $10,000 in some Latin American cities."

And guess where it goes next. Here's the Toronto Globe and Mail on February 2, 2002: "The unregulated world of surrogacy has given way to an even more disturbing practice: Canadian women are producing babies for sale to couples who have no relation to the infants."

Tissues, embryos, organs, even children. Business is booming. Here's the New York Times again, May 23, 2004. "It is a common practice of many larger clinics to advertise on the Internet for transplant tourists, so we're up to our necks in it," Dr. Scheper-Hughes said. Transplant doctors, she says, have developed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. … Recife and its slums had become so lucrative a source for organs, in fact, that Brazilian investigators believe that by late 2003, Israeli brokers, in an effort to swell their earnings further, were considering moving their operations to hospitals here and in other nearby cities. With poverty offering up an unquenchable pool of volunteers, the local authorities say the ring had also begun inquiring about buying other vital organs from poor residents, including lungs, livers and corneas."

Or this from the Associated Press, June 1, 2003: "[A] coalition of surgeons, academics, religious leaders and activists … wants a 1984 law prohibiting financial incentives for organ donations to be rewritten to allow a project that would award $5,000 to families who authorize a deceased relative's organs to be used for transplantation. … "It would just greatly increase the number of organs that are donated," Harold Kyriazi, a University of Pittsburgh neurostem cellientist who organized the group, said … Both United Network for Organ Sharing - the nonprofit organization that administers the nation's organ procurement network - and the American Medical Assn. have called for studies of financial incentives for organ donations."

And for my last example, consider this from the New York Times on November 11, 2001: "Kidneys, livers, corneas and other body parts from [executed Chinese] prisoners are being transplanted into American citizens or permanent residents who otherwise would have to wait years for organs. … few of the condemned, if any, consent to having their organs removed, people involved with the process say. Some of the unwitting donors may even be innocent, having been executed as part of a surge of executions propelled by accelerated trials and confessions that sometimes were extracted through torture. … This year, 5,000 prisoners or more are likely to be put to death during a nationwide anti-crime drive. … Taiwan also harvests organs from executed prisoners, albeit with strict consent requirements, as do some South American countries.

Or this from the Washington Post, June 7, 2001: "A Chinese man seeking political asylum in the United States says that as a physician in China, he took part in removing corneas and harvesting skin from more than 100 executed prisoners, including one who had not yet died."

Now what I've give you here, obviously, is a slippery slope. We don't have to end up at the bottom. We don't have to stop short at the top But some of the steps at the top are very compelling, such as the case of Molly. But if the only principles that guides us are the ones we heard from John Kerry and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the principle of utility, then we will end up at the bottom.