Michael J. Fox, Stem Cell Research and Compassion in Political Discourse
October 26, 2006
Actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, has attracted a great deal of attention during the last several days for lending his voice in support of various Congressional candidates who support all types of stem cell research, including that which results in the destruction of human embryos. Among the campaign ads drawing attention is Fox’s endorsement of Democrat Ben Cardin in his U.S. Senate race against Republican Michael Steele.
Fox’s appeal is powerful, particularly within the context of our postmodern culture in which narrative is king. “With so much at stake,” including “hope [for] millions of Americans with diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s,” it could be argued that the compassionate response would be to do whatever Fox asks. In this case, his request appears simple: he’s asking that we support Ben Cardin and other candidates willing to do whatever it takes to relieve these types of human suffering.
My heart aches for Michael J. Fox and others who suffer from the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s. Many, if not most, of our families have been or will be touched by a disease like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or diabetes, a cure for which (I gather from his plea) could be found through embryonic stem cell research. Viewed through a biblical lens, compassion calls us to do what we can, as a society, to comfort the afflicted and to alleviate their suffering. Biblical compassion calls us to battle their disease through the development of medical cures – but not at any cost. Biblical compassion cannot, however, carry the heavy burden associated with a program that involves the destruction of some human life for the benefit of others.
Rush Limbaugh argues (among other insulting things) that “Michael J. Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democratic politician.” I cannot argue that Fox’s plea for compassion amounts to exploitation or that it has no place in the political arena. I need only look at page A5 of today’s Washington Post to confirm that compassion can play an important and legitimate motivational role. A5 presents another full-page advertisement by the Save Darfur Coalition: A young woman or child stands grieving over a grave beneath the headline, “WHEN ALL THE BODIES HAVE BEEN BURIED IN DARFUR HOW WILL HISTORY JUDGE US?” The ad continues:
GENOCIDE IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN DARFUR. YOU CAN HELP END IT. 400,000 people dead. 2.5 million displaced. Untold thousands raped, tortured and terrorized. Men. Women. Children. . . . LOG ON TO DEMAND ACTION. www.SaveDarfur.org
What I will suggest is that, as participants in the American political dialogue, we ought not allow compassion to determine the positions we take or votes we cast. Compassion for the suffering is not the only consideration, although we may be asked to believe and act as if it is. “The post-Christian mind,” Harry Blamires warns, “does its work while feelings of sympathy and compassion are so stirred that it would be wickedly uncharitable to register exactly what is happening. [C]ompassion is sometimes a means of gently brainwashing us into connivance in the destruction of standards.” The Post-Christian Mind: Exposing Its Destructive Agenda p.99 (1999 edition). Blamires’ warning applies here. The Michael J. Fox advertisements invite us to focus on his distress. They invite us to ignore other social goods, like the protection and defense of all vulnerable human life, even life at its earliest stages. Defenders of life are treated as uncharitable or uncaring if they respond to Mr. Fox by pointing to the voiceless thousands whose lives will never come to be if embryonic stem cell research is allowed to proceed without moral or ethical restraints.
Michael J. Fox is free and welcome to voice his concerns. As Christians, we ought to respond with compassion and sympathy. But compassion and “pity for each and every individual case should not brim over into tacit acceptance . . . of an ethic of which we utterly disapprove” (Blamires, p.98). When our hearts are touched, we ought not allow our heads to be seduced into allowing the destruction of other values critical to the cultivation of a peaceful, prosperous culture.
