Newborns as involuntary donors.

The evil logic of embryonic stem cell experimentation dictates that some human beings can be created for the sole purpose of serving as involuntary test subjects or tissue donors. A research team at Chicago's Reproductive Genetics Institute has taken that logic an ominous step further by facilitating the birth of five babies "to provide stem cells for siblings with serious non-heritable conditions," reported the May 4 New Scientist.

Referred to as "savior siblings," the babies "were born after a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) was used to test embryos for a tissue match to the ailing siblings," continues the report. "The aim in these cases was to provide stem cells for transplantation to children who are suffering from leukemia and a rare condition called Diamond-Blackfan Anemia (DBA)."

"It's a big step, because it gives people another option," enthused British researcher Mohammed Taranissi, a member of the bi-national team that conducted the procedure. "Before that the only option was to look in the siblings and immediate family to see if you had a match or alternatively to just keep trying [to have a baby which matches].... The advantages of doing it this way, [are] that it is not an invasive procedure for the child whose cells are used."

However, the procedure involved the creation of 28 human embryos --genetically distinct human beings--23 of whom were destroyed. And it goes without saying that the five children who survived have not given their consent to serve as donors.

One basic moral assumption in the Judeo-Christian worldview is that human beings are to be regarded as ends, not employed as means. Creating people for the purpose of serving as organ and tissue banks--even in a limited capacity, in tragic circumstances--lays a predicate for a whole new variety of slavery.