Sacrificing Others for the Greater Good

Science, we prefer to think, has removed us from the dark inhumanity of human sacrifice and the historic callousness that would kill and dismember a child as insurance against starvation. The Aztecs and Mayans dismembered living prisoners to appease gods and ensure crop fertility, which they believed essential to survival. The Egyptians and Norse killed servants of their deceased wealthy to improve the quality of their afterlife. Our futures now are secured on the laboratory bench rather than the stone altar. We have Science, and consider ourselves far better off because of it.

A few days ago, someone shared this short video, 'It's OK,' about 4 minutes long and worth watching. It is made by a group opposing abortion called Choice42. The abortion issue is complicated and evokes emotions and is discussed later. What matters here is that the video is well researched, objective, and explains how scientists are paid to cut and disembowel live humans on laboratory benches in the hope of improving the futures of those who pay them, and the rest of us. 

As a society, we have developed well-organized, methodical ways to do this, and pride ourselves in their cleverness. The video is very moving – it is meant to be because pulling little humans apart without anesthetic for the benefit of others is something that, when removed from its veil of scientific progress, can be hard to think about.

The use of aborted human fetuses and embryos brought us many of the vaccines we use today, including some promoted by the Roman Catholic Church and those used by many who oppose abortion itself. The cell cultures derived from the unborn babies represented in the video, and from similar cases, are used widely by people working in the biological sciences. They can be purchased online. Undoubtedly, many lives of people who lived after have been saved by the use of some of these cell lines, and people are therefore born today who would not be if the cells had not been harvested.

The researchers who regularly work with these cells come from a whole swath of different cultures, religious beliefs, and political perspectives. Mostly, they probably never seriously consider whom the cells in the petri dish descended from. If they do, they may dismiss the harvesting as too long ago to be relevant (though the practice continues) or somehow necessary (as the Aztecs did, needing to keep the world itself habitable). The video simply reminds us of certain truths, and of how willing we are, or how far we will go, to ignore them.