Holy For Life Habits Flow from
God’s Holy For Life Habits
Created by God’s Hands
Redeemed by God’s Hands
Held by God’s Hands
Holy For Life Habits
God’s
Creating Redeeming Holding
Ours
Speaking and Defending
Accepting and Forgiving
Caring
Valuing the Least of These
“Whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers of mine,
you did for me.”
(Matthew 25:40)
Biotechnology 101
and God’s Word
In Vitro Fertilization
“In glass”
In Vitro Fertilization
 Embryonic
grading
Grade 4
Grade 1
Grade 3
Grade 2
Grade 0
In Vitro Fertilization
 Pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis
In Vitro Fertilization
 “Good”

embryos
Implantation in the uterus
• Implant several embryos
• “Selectively reduce”

Stored by freezing
“Ectogenesis”
Artificial Womb
Questions
???
In Vitro Fertilization:
Moral or Immoral?
Stem Cell Research
Blastocyst (5 days)
Blastocyst on tip of pin
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
• God’s Procreative Process
Conception
One Celled
Human Being
(Zygote)
5-Day Human
Being
(Blastocyst)
8-week baby
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
• Obtaining stem cells from embryos
One Celled
Human Being
(Zygote)
5-Day Human
Being
(Blastocyst)
Extracted
Stem Cells
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Stem Cells
Bone Marrow
Nerve
Pancreatic
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Source: WebMD Corporation
Totipotent
Pluripotent
Multipotent
Adult Stem Cells
 Matured
(“adult”)
 From umbilical cords
 Amniotic Fluid
 From you and me
 Pluripotent as well
 Embryonic stem cells =
No success
 Adult
stem cells =
Many successes
Prof. Kang Kyung-sun of Seoul
National University explains the
process of harvesting pancreatic
beta cells from umbilical cord
blood stem cells.
(The Korean Times, 1/23/07)
Stem cells found in pulp of baby
teeth! (Scientific American April
23, 2003)
Amniotic Fluid
The research results were scientifically profound. The researchers not only
isolated fat, bone, muscle, skin, nerve, and liver cells from extracted
amniotic cells, but also reported that these cells produced specialized
functions. For example, isolated bone marrow cells from amniotic stem
cells showed the ability to produce functional bone marrow osteoblasts
(bone marrow forming cells) and liver cells isolated from amniotic stem
cells expressed proteins such as albumin and urea (a characteristic liverspecific function). In addition, amniotic stem cells produced characteristics
of cardiac muscle and insulin production. (Dr. Robert Weise, Concordia
Seminary, St. Louis in LifeDate Spring 2007)
Breaking News!
Induced pluripotent stem cells,
commonly abbreviated as iPSC cells
or iPSCs, are a type of pluripotent stem
cell artificially derived from a nonplutipotent cell, typically an adult
somatic cell by inducing a "forced"
expression of certain genes.
Questions
???
Stem Cell Research:
Understanding the Basics
Cloning
Cloning
• The Cloning Process
Stimulation
Egg Cell
23 Chromosomes
One Celled
Human Being
(Zygote)
Somatic (body) Cell
46 Chromosomes
5-Day Human
Being
(Blastocyst)
Somatic Cell
Nuclear Transfer
Reproductive
Cloning
“Therapeutic”
Cloning
Copy
CatCat
Copy
Rainbow
Rainbow
A review of all the world’s cloned animals suggests that every
one of them is genetically and physically defective. Ian
Wilmut said, “There is abundant evidence that cloning can
and does go wrong and no justification for believing that this
will not happen with humans.”
(“Gene defects emerge in all animal clones.” Sunday Times of London, April 28, 2002)
We know from animal cloning that the technical problems
and dangers associated with cloning will never produce
therapies that these researchers
speculate could be applied to human beings.
David Stevens, MD, Christian Medical & Dental Associations,
New & Views, February 19, 2004
Cloned Human Beings?
Questions
???
Cloning:
Understanding the Basics
Genetic Engineering
 Genetic
engineering is the alteration of an
organism’s genetic material to eliminate
undesirable characteristics or to produce
desirable new ones.
Genetic Engineering
Blue eyes?
Tall?
Lutheran?
Boy? Girl?
Athletic?
No disease?
Human Genome Program, U.S.
Department of Energy, Genomics
and Its Impact on Medicine and
Society: A 2001 Primer, 2001
© 1997 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
© 1998 Columbia Tri-Star Home Video
Playing God
Redesigning Life
“Drawing lines is necessary not just
because it is right, but because drawing
lines is at stake.”
(Joni Eareckson Tada)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“Your scientists were
so preoccupied with
whether or not they
could, that they didn’t
stop to think whether
they should.”
From the film Jurassic Park
“Everything is
permissible”—but not
everything is
beneficial.“Everything is
permissible”—but not
everything is constructive.
Nobody should seek his
own good, but the good of
others.
1Corinthians 10:23-24
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“Haven’t you read”, He replied, “that at
the beginning the Creator ‘made them
male and female,’ and said, ‘For this
reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and
the two will become one flesh’?”
(Jesus – Matthew 19:4-5)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
For You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my
mother’s womb. I praise You
because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13-14)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“You shall not murder.”
(Exodus 20:13)
“The embryo is, I believe, the weakest and
least advantaged of our fellow human
beings, and no community is really strong if it
will not carry its weakest members.”
(Dr. Gilbert Milander, Valparaiso University)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“I am the LORD your God, who
brought you out of Egypt, out of
the land of slavery. You shall
have no other gods before Me.”
(Exodus 20:2-3)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“Do you have the kind of heart that expects from
Him nothing but good, especially in distress and
want, and renounces and forsakes all that is not
God? Then you have the one true God. On the
contrary, does your heart cling to something else
from which it hopes to receive more good and
help than from God, and does it flee not to Him
but from Him when things go wrong? Then you
have an idol, another god.” (Martin Luther – Large Catechism)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“I am the LORD your God, who
brought you out of Egypt, out of
the land of slavery. You shall
have no other gods before Me.”
(Exodus 20:2-3)
Why do we oppose embryonic stem
cell research and cloning?
“You shall conceive in
your womb . . .”
(Luke 1:31)
He who did not spare
His only Son but gave
Him up for us all—
how will He not also,
along with Him,
graciously give us all
things? (Romans 8:32)
Questions
???