Dear Friend,

The Board of Directors of The Center for Bioethics and Culture cordially invites you to The Eighth Annual Paul Ramsey Award Dinner, to be held at 6:30 PM, Friday, March 25, 2011, at the Lakeside Olympic Club in San Francisco. The evening will include addresses by

• William Hurlbut, M.D.
• Wesley J. Smith, J.D.
• Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder and President
• Luke Gormally, 2011 Paul Ramsey Award Recipient

RSVP by March 11, 2011:

• Reserve One Seat ($125)
• Sponsor One Table ($1,200)
• Sponsor One Life Table ($2,500)
• Sponsor One Paul Ramsey Table ($5,000)

Who was Paul Ramsey?

Paul Ramsey (1913–1988) is regarded by many as one of the most important ethicists of the twentieth century. He served as Harrington Spear Pain Professor of Religion, Princeton University and was a distinguished and prolific writer on bioethics during the advent of the field in the early 1960s. Ramsey’s commitment to the sanctity and dignity of human life has shone with clarity and brightness as a beacon in the general darkness of academic bioethics for the past fifty years.

What is the Paul Ramsey Award?

The Paul Ramsey Award is a project of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, marked with an annual event to honor those among us that have and are deeply impacting the bioethics discussion by actively equipping our society to face the challenges of the twenty-first century, profoundly defending the dignity of humankind, and enthusiastically embracing ethical biotechnology for the human good. The Paul Ramsey Award is given to those who, in the spirit of Ramsey, have demonstrated exemplary achievement in the field of bioethics

The 2011 Paul Ramsey Award
Recipient: Luke Gormally

The Paul Ramsey Award nomination committee is pleased to announce Luke Gormally as the 2011 recipient of the Paul Ramsey Award for excellence in bioethics. Professor Gormally is a leading British bioethicist and was long-time Director of The Linacre Centre. More recently, he served as Senior Research Fellow of the Centre and Research Professor of Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan; he now serves as Director Emeritus of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre. Gormally has published numerous books and papers on issues such as euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, the sanctity of life in medicine, healthcare allocation, and reproductive ethics—taking a life affirming stand on each of these issues over a career of faithful research.

Paul Ramsey Award Winners, past and present (left to right): Edmund Pellegrino (2004), Germain Grisez (2005), John Finnis (2006), William May (2007), Albert Moraczewski (2008), Gilbert Meilaender (2009), Leon Kass (2010), Luke Gormally (2011, above)

Lines That Divide — The Stem Cell Battle Continues

The past month of stem cell news has made it clear that the debate over embryo-destructive research is as heated as ever.In late August, the Obama Administration’s embryonic stem cell policy was decided to be in violation of the 1996 Dickey-Wicker amendment. Despite this, funding has continued after the U.S. Court of Appeals lifted the injunction. Dickey-Wicker has long been a “bulwark against barbarism,” to prevent the rampant destruction of nascent human life for research. And it appears to be one of our last stands for human dignity in stem cell research.Our 2009 film Lines That Divide frames the ethical debate between embryonic and adult stem cell therapies, helping to shed light on these recent legal developments. Visit LinesThatDivide.com.

Purchase the CBC’s documentariesEggsploitation AND Lines That Divide$29.99 + S&H a savings of $6.99

Keep your finger on the pulse of the bioethicsdiscussion with our weekly bioethics enewsletter.Send me the CBC weekly enewsletter.

Previous Ramsey Award Recipients

• 2004: Edmund D. Pellegrino
• 2005: Germain Grisez
• 2006: John M. Finnis
• 2007: William E. May
• 2008: Albert S. Moraczewski
• 2009: Gilbert Meilaender
• 2010: Leon Kass

Who is Paul Ramsey?

Paul Ramsey is regarded by many as one of the most important ethicists of the twentieth century. He was a distinguished writer on bioethics a generation ago, and served as Harrington Spear Pain Professor of Religion, Princeton University. Ramsey shines as an almost lone beacon in the general darkness of academic bioethics, since his commitment to the sanctity and dignity of human life was paramount.

Film Presents the Hidden Dangers, Health Risks, and Exploitation of Young Women Through Egg Donation

NEW YORK, NY/July 28, 2010 – The infertility industry has a dirty little secret that is dressed in deceptive advertising, large monetary incentives and appeals to altruism. Using these tactics, the industry targets young, vulnerable women for a precious commodity: human eggs. Eggsploitation, a new documentary released today by The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, is a tragic spotlight on the booming and risky business of selling eggs, and reveals the health risks and exploitation of women through egg donation. Eggsploitation debuts at The Little Theatre in Rochester, New York, on Monday, August 9, 2010 at 5:00 p.m.

Eggsploitation profiles three highly educated young women—Calla, Alexandra and Sindy—all who suffered extreme health consequences related to their egg donation. Dangerous health complications can occur during the egg donation process as a result of taking high doses of fertility drugs or the egg retrieval surgery, or both. Their disturbing testimonies about their experience with egg donation are a wake-up call to a highly unregulated, multi-billion-dollar industry that is jeopardizing young women’s health at the expense of fulfilling another’s desire to have a baby.

Calla suffered a stroke, brain damage and loss of her own fertility; Alexandra lost an ovary due to complications related to superovulation and later developed breast cancer; and Sindy developed severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). All three women nearly died due to the complications associated with their egg donation. In an interview for the film, Calla recounts, “The industry knew that this would happen sooner or later. They’ve just been rolling the dice and it fell on me. It was worth the money to them.”

With the rise of assisted reproductive technology, young, healthy women are targeted on university campuses with advertisements in college newspapers and on the internet. Fertility clinics place advertisements in search of egg donors with desirable genetic traits, attractive appearance and a high IQ. These women are lured by the large sums of money and assured of the safety of the procedure and the nobility of helping others.

Egg donation is presented as a safe procedure, but the reality is quite the opposite. Eggsploitation blows the whistle on the disturbing realities of the infertility industry’s human egg trade. This film is a call to action to egg donors and the general public to confront the exploitative practices of egg donation and seek legislative action to protect women’s health.

For more information, visit www.eggsploitation.com.

About The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network: Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBC) was founded with a vision to educate and engage the public on bioethical issues, including stem cell research, reproductive technology, human cloning and euthanasia. The CBC is actively involved in supporting many states in legislative advocacy and public policy on these issues. The CBC’s first documentary, Lines That Divide, was an official selection of the 2010 California Independent Film Festival.

2010 marks the tenth anniversary of the CBC! We are preparing for some special projects and events throughout the year to commemorate this exciting milestone, and we need your help now more than ever.

We all know how powerful film media can be; and the CBCís productions are no exception. Last month, Lines That Divide: The Great Stem Cell Debate was an official selection of the California Independent Film Festival, and it continues to be be shown all over the world — on television, in theaters, on college campuses, in churches — educating the public on the ethical issues surrounding stem cell research. And as we move forward with the production and release of Eggsploitation, we will educate young women, assist legislators who seek to pass laws to protect young women, and push back against the scientific human cloning agenda which depends so heavily on human eggs. If you are interested in purchasing an advance copy of this film, visit www.eggsploitation.com. Let us know if you want to organize a showing in your community!

The last ten years have provided a deep ethical foundation to build upon in the future. Please visit our website and read our report on our past ten years of accomplishments and great progress toward securing a human future. The CBC is commited to our important role in shoring up the ethics of scientific and medical progress.

You are an essential part of the CBCís work — your financial support enables us to pave new paths in the field of bioethics and prepare for sound ethical engagement in the next ten years of biotechnological advance. Together, we can stand in the gap between the promise of great scientific discovery and the potential destruction and disregard of human life. Your gift today will contribute to the work at hand, and, ultimately, to the future of human dignity and the sanctity of life.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Lahl
National Director

Support us financially, or even better, become a monthly supporter. For any donation of $100 or more we will send you a copy of the documentary, Lines That Divide. Get the word out about the CBC! We have a lot of work to do and you can help.

In 2010, CBC turns ten!  We will have some special events and celebrations throughout the year.  But to kick us off, I thought I’d highlight my best memories of the past decade.  For our full report, Ten Years of Building a Human Future, you can download a pdf here.

Top 10 List — 10 Years and Counting:

1. With little money but a big vision to educate and engage the culture in all things bioethical, the CBC was launched with a conference attended by about 40 people in Oakland, CA .  We were an all-volunteer staff, and our total income was a little over $12,000!
   
2. In 2001, we broadened our vision and reach with our “Coffee and Discourse” lecture series drawing from expert speakers all across the country – Dr. Chris Hook, from the Mayo Clinic, spoke on nanotechnology and robotics; Dr. Francis Beckwith lectured on the constitution and the right to clone human beings; Dr. Bill Hurlbut gave a wonderful presentation on altruism and love; and Dr. Nigel Cameron, Wesley J. Smith, and Dr. C. Ben Mitchell, along with many others, gave informative and challenging lectures. Through these lectures we built a core base of supporters, many still with us today.  We were still an all-volunteer staff.
3. By 2002, we came up with this crazy idea to host “The Debate of the Century – What Does it Mean to Be Human?” between Dr. Nigel Cameron, then chairman of the CBC board, and Peter Singer of Princeton University.  This debate put CBC on the map and quickly branded us with name recognition as the group who hosted “The Debate of the Century.” Robyn Klein was brought on to manage that event.  We received our first $10,000 foundational grant and our income jumped to a bit over $80,000.
4. In 2003, we brought together diverse leaders and thinkers to host our first conference on transhumanism, “The Face of the Future: Technosapiens?”   At the end of 2003, we received a $200,000 matching grant challenge, and with only 6 weeks to raise the funds, we raised $150,000.  This allowed us to hire Robyn to do more public relations building and event coordination with the CBC; and to add Paul van der Bijl to manage our email campaigns and web presence, and Wesley Smith as a special paid consultant to do regular writing and speaking for the CBC.
5. 2004 brought the first Paul Ramsey Award dinner honoring Edmund Pellegrino, as we saw the importance of recognizing leaders in this new and important field and honoring the legacy of Paul Ramsey.  We hosted our 2nd  Technosapien conference in Washington,  D.C., with diverse speakers like Dr. Leon Kass and Dr. Nick Bostrom.
6. 2005, the height of Prop. 71 – Wesley Smith, Bill Hurlbut and I were invited to speak at the Willie Brown Stem Cell Symposium. CBC hosted a round table conference with political representatives of both left and right, which was the beginning of working with feminists and leaders on the left, reaching across the political aisle, and building coalitions that still serve us well.
7. 2006 launched the “6000 Souls” campaign based on the writings of Prof. John Finnis, the recipient of the 2006 Paul Ramsey award.  Finnis imagined that if liberal euthanasia laws passed in a state the size of California, 6,000 people would be euthanized who didn’t want it or ask for it!
8. 2007 was the year of “Trading on the Female Body.”  The international campaign, HandsOffOurOvaries, launched, and we hosted several bipartisan congressional briefings on Capitol Hill to raise awareness of the exploitation of women for eggs for embryo and cloning research.
9. By 2008, we saw the need to get ahead of the mainstream media and the sound bite scientific word wars, and to tell the whole story around the stem cell and human cloning debates.  So, we began fundraising and script writing for the production of our documentary,  Lines That Divide: The Great Stem Cell Debate.
10. In 2009, CBC hosted a conference with international scientific experts addressing “Banking on Life: Cord Blood Stem Cells and the Future of Regenerative Medicine.”  We premiered “Lines that Divide” all across the country, hosting showings at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., The Vine Theater, Boston College and the University of CA at Berkeley, and on over 100 cable stations in the country.

As we enter 2010, the future looks bright!  Lines that Divide has been chosen and will be shown at the California Independent  Film Festival!  We are organizing a showing on the Stanford University campus on May 6th  and many more states and organizations are hosting more showings.  This film is all the more important as Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Mike Castle (R-DE) have just introduced legislation to expand embryonic and cloning research in the U.S.  CBC is actively supporting  many states in legislation advocacy work.

I’m happy to report that we are halfway through producing our next documentary film devoted to the issue of egg “donation” and the health risks to women being recruited to donate their eggs for IVF or for research.

This year we seek to raise $150,000 toward our Strategic Initiative to Prohibit Human Cloning in the U.S. (PDF). Over this last year, I have shown Lines That Divide to thousands of people and heard reactions from them as they leave the auditorium.  People see this film and they say two things:  We don’t need to destroy human embryos to find cures for sick people, and we certainly don’t need to destroy a young woman’s health in the process.

By our 20th anniversary our vision is that:

• CBC would be training the best minds of the future through internships and fellowships.
• CBC would have endowed chairs where Ph.D.s could have thinking and writing time to contribute academically to the field of bioethics, continuing in the legacy of Paul Ramsey and all the great recipients of this award.
• CBC would be training and placing people in all 50 states to enable good public policy.

2009 was a tough year.  Our giving was down about 15%.  Many of you gave sacrificially – thank you.  But at the end of the day, to do the work before us takes money.  And so, I ask you again, as you are able, to give to the CBC.  Giving is easy through our online account.  Monthly support is greatly appreciated.  And call us if you want to make a contribution through stock donation.  Consider contributing to the legacy of the CBC and the future of the human race!

Lines That Divide was shown as an Official Selection at the California Independent Film Festival on Sunday, April 25.

About Lines That Divide: Stem cell research: A potential miracle cure for diseases or a form of biological colonialism? The debate still rages over this controversial science. Supporters argue that it is our moral duty to pursue scientific progress that provides healing hope for humanity. Detractors argue that the end doesn’t justify the means in harvesting some human life or exploiting women for their eggs in order to save others. This documentary seeks to educate the public on the scientific basics of stem cell research and the political issues surrounding it as we enter the 21st century.

Thank you very much for the honor you have given me. I am very sorry that I cannot be with you this evening to express my gratitude and to let you know, face-to-face, how greatly I esteem the work of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. The Ramsey Award has a very special meaning for me, for Paul Ramsey was my mentor and friend, and my first teacher in bioethics. More than anyone else, he was responsible for major changes in my moral outlook and my life’s work. Tonight I wish to acknowledge my debt to Ramsey and to continue my conversation with him — and with you — on a subject where we once differed in print.

I first met Paul Ramsey in his writings, an early-1960s essay on the “Moral and Religious Implications of Genetic Control.” That article changed my mind, not only by leading me to discover, against my enlightenment complacency, that abortion and even contraception were moral questions, but also by showing me for the first time the power and profundity of a religious perspective on these matters. It was curious. The men of science who wrote on bioethics were largely mush-headed, soft-hearted utopians, trusting in an invisible hand of progress more providential than God Almighty. And here was Ramsey, a professed man of faith, who could reason better than them all, and, moreover, was not afraid of being found unpopular.

In 1968, while I was working at NIH, a letter I wrote to Ramsey secured me an invitation to a series of seminars that he would conduct with members of the Georgetown medical faculty on bioethical topics. These seminars led to his first two books in bioethics, The Patient as Person and Fabricated Man, both published exactly forty years ago, the first monographs in the nascent field of bioethics. Rereading them today, I rejoice in their lasting power, even as I bemoan the fact that few writings since hold a candle to Ramsey’s pioneering efforts. In the Georgetown seminars, a doctor would report on some morally charged medical area: experimentation in human subjects, definition of death, organ transplantation, etc. Ramsey would then begin to ask questions, always designed to understand how the physician himself understood the moral questions implicit in his domain. For Ramsey, practicing ethics was not top-down application of abstract theories, but grounded and guided reflection on concrete actual practices.

One day Ramsey asked me to read a draft manuscript on genetic manipulation; I believe it was on “Parenthood and the Future of Man by Artificial Donor Insemination.” I was flattered. I read with care, scribbling comments, questions, and stylistic emendations in the margins. Nervously, I arrived at his apartment, wondering how the Professor would take to my comments, including my not infrequent complaints about his prose. My fears were absolutely unfounded. We spent three or four hours in what was for me exhilarating conversation. It was the first of many such occasions, for I was privileged to read in draft nearly all of the chapters of The Patient as Person and Fabricated Man. Each chapter was the subject of a lengthy evening session. No point I might raise did he regard as too small, no argument too absurd. In Paul Ramsey I had met a man devoted both to high moral principle and to learning and inquiry. I admired his generous ways and warmed to his earthy manner.

My reading and conversing with Ramsey in Washington proved more exciting than the research I was doing at NIH. It now seemed to me possible that one could reason vigorously and powerfully about the moral questions raised by scientific advance, questions that had already begun to bother me. That year Dan Callahan began to recruit people to start the Hastings Center, and it was Ramsey who got me invited to the founding meetings of the Center. Forty years ago this April Fool’s Day, I left the laboratory for work in ethics, work for which I had no formal training, but for which I felt myself somehow ready, thanks largely to the encouragement and example of Paul Ramsey, and, I must add, also Hans Jonas. Later that year, in one of my first publications, I reviewed Fabricated Man for Theology Today, concluding as follows:

In this age when scientism is in the pulpit, and when so many theologians are eagerly scrambling past each other to be the first to embrace the Double-Helix, this non-Christian, scientist-reviewer is especially grateful to Professor Ramsey for his stubborn refusal to part with the unique wisdoms that are his as a Christian theologian and as a profound student of the moral life. Would that more of his fellow theologians and moral philosophers would follow his example and hearken to their calling. We desperately need their special understanding as we face the awesome powers, now gathering, for controlling the bodies and minds of men.

At Hastings, Ramsey and I were close colleagues through the 1970s, especially in the research group on death and dying and on the Board of Directors, where we were frequently allies in lost causes. Again and again, I was impressed by Paul’s blend of tenacity and fairness in public meetings. He took other people’s remarks often more seriously than they did in making them; accordingly, his questions often produced embarrassment and even irritation. But I never saw a grain of anger or nastiness, even when it might have been justified. Whatever one might say, theoretically, about the possibility of the union of Christianity and gentlemanship, there was no doubt that all of us were in the presence of a Christian gentleman.

Yet it was over a question about the compatibility of Christianity and nobility — or, if you prefer, of Jerusalem and Athens — that Paul and I had a serious theoretical disagreement. The immediate subject was what Ramsey called “The Indignity of ‘Death with Dignity,’” but the larger question concerned the nature and ground of human dignity, a subject still vital to all bioethical discussions. Presciently and wisely, Ramsey wrote to oppose the shallow views of human life that informed the emerging “death with dignity” movement, which spoke as if dignity would reign if only officious doctors kept their machinery at bay and let nature take its course with the mortally ill. But Ramsey’s argument ultimately rested on his belief that death itself was an inherent indignity, because it “contradict[ed] . . . the unique worth of an individual human life.” This view rested, in turn, on his Christian faith: that we human beings, originally created for immortality, fell through sin into our mortal condition, where we enjoy only an alien dignity bestowed upon us by God, who out of His infinite love became man and was crucified, and who thus redeems us and offers us salvation from sin and the conquest of death.

Against this view, half a lifetime ago, your honoree took up the pen against his teacher. In an essay entitled “Averting One’s Eyes or Facing the Music? — On Dignity in Death,” I argued that death was not in itself an affront to human dignity; that human dignity was intrinsic and rooted in our nature, not alien and bestowed; and that it was manifested — or not — in how we lived our lives and faced our deaths — some of us with dignity, some without it. Moreover, against Ramsey, I insisted that what was most dignified and worthy about us was not what made each of us a unique and irreplaceable human being, but rather what we had humanly in common — our species-specific capacities for understanding, community, and moral excellence. Then in the grip of natural philosophy, forged from equal doses of Aristotle and Darwin, I even argued from the natural necessity of mortality to the goodness of mortality, seeing in it the condition of making the most of our allotted time, and suggesting that it is through procreation and transmission of tradition that we embodied human beings best participate in the enduring and transcendent.

Time and further study has taught me my lessons, even though I have not yet converted fully to Ramsey’s point of view. Though I still celebrate what we human beings have in common, I no longer devalue our individuality and no longer regard as mere sentimentality the celebration of our “uniqueness.” The human soul comes to us never in its generality, always in its particular embodiments, each with our own special manifestations of the glories and miseries of being human, each with our particular — yes, unique — trajectory from living zygote in the womb to lifeless body in the grave. The only human life we can live and celebrate is not universal but parochial, and not a single moment of it will ever come again. True love loves uniquely the one whom it has been given to me to love: my beloved — like my father or mother of blessed memory, or my family and friends — is not replaceable. Alas, Paul Ramsey’s like I shall not see again, and I wish it were possible for me to tell him that I now see what he was getting at in celebrating our unique individuality. I am still willing to give one or two cheers for my own mortality, but I now find it impossible to assent naturalistically to the extinction of those near and dear. Thus, if I now universalize this insight about my own life and love, I see clearly why the equal and immeasurable preciousness of every human life — each one equally in God’s image, each one equally unique — must remain the first principle of any decent bioethics. This was the crucial starting point of Paul Ramsey’s work, and the guiding nerve of his magisterial The Patient as Person.

Yet, that said, our human dignity is not exhausted by what makes us irreplaceable actors upon the human stage. It still matters greatly how we act and how well we use our God-given powers in the drama in which we are privileged to play a part. Because there is more to human dignity than our vitality and uniqueness, we must be careful lest single-minded attachment to the bedrock principle of life undermine the edifice that we seek to erect upon it. For if we think that death is an irreducible evil and always an affront to human dignity, we will be hard-pressed to avoid embracing the project for the conquest of aging and mortality and the indefinite prolongation of life. We will be hard-pressed to remember why we should not mortgage the future for our children to purchase better health care for ourselves. And we will be hard-pressed to recognize the dehumanizing possibilities embedded in the project for the mastery of nature for the relief of man’s estate and the biotechnical pursuit of superior performance, ageless bodies, and pharmaceutically happy souls.

Paul Ramsey understood the dangers of dehumanization and gave them prominent place in his bioethical writings. If the Patient as Person emphasized what Ramsey’s prize student Gil Meilaender, in his new book, calls personal dignity, Fabricated Man emphasized what Meilaender calls human dignity — the dignity of the human species as human, with its aspirations and possibilities for excellence and virtue, love and friendship, righteousness and holiness. Those of us who care about dignity must care equally for both sorts. It will not do, for the party of dignity, to be so monomaniacal in its defense of life in its beginnings that it accepts babies born in bottles so long as no embryo dies in the process, or rejects a ban on placing human embryos into animal wombs because that might be the only way to rescue embryos now frozen in freezers. It will not do for the party of dignity, addressing painful decisions at the end of life, always to insist on stretching those we love and dread to lose on the rack of medicalized prolongation. Important though it is, the dignity of “Life at the Edges” — the theme of another one of Ramsey’s books — is no more crucial than the dignity of “Life in Its Flourishing.” Following the lead of Paul Ramsey, we must stand up for this dignity as well, if we wish to avoid the soul-flattened degradations of a Brave New World. Only in this way can we preserve for future generations a world still hospitable to the many wonderful and worthy activities of which the upright and God-seeking animal alone is capable.