Immortal Life: The Body and Science

Anti-aging research has given us a new hope for a longer life. Thanks to the stem cell studies by scientists like Dr. Doris Taylor, our knowledge of how a heart works and how stem cells help bodies to regenerate and take part in "endogenous healing" (Tippett, 2010) have advanced the way we think about human life on this planet.

As Krista Tippett, Host of On Being, describes in her interview with Dr. Taylor, "a new and dramatic discovery about the human body" is now in our midst, though that discovery has been "politicized" in a way that throws a moral question over the research (Tippett, 2010). Dr. Taylor explains that a lot of fear in the public about the use of stem cells comes from the fact that most people think of aborted fetuses when they hear the word "stem cell". They imagine doctors as crazed scientists like Dr. Frankenstein, working furiously to play God in a laboratory without concern or care for the questions of ethics, morality and the sacredness of human life. But as Dr. Taylor points out, the stem cells they use for research come from fertilized eggs that are donated following in vitro fertilization: there is no "robbery" of a fetus and the eggs that are donated would otherwise go to waste -- so what she points out is that as a scientist she actually feels a moral obligation to use those cells for a good purpose -- for study and research so that she and others like her can help find cures to aging, to dying stem cells, to cancer, to heart regeneration.

While some may still go on to question the ethics of in vitro fertilization, the point that Dr. Taylor makes is that we are beginning to understand how to remake a human heart and there is a lot of potential there for really addressing concerns persons may have over anti-aging formulas. If doctors can help the body to reverse the tendency of stem cells in the body to break down, to no longer help the body to heal as it ages, then there is real hope that doctors could help massively in the fight against aging.

My own take on living forever is that it is a question that has already been answered by different belief systems. Dr. Taylor believes in science, in the here and now, in helping people to ease their suffering. That is fine -- but others have pointed out that there is a fine line between helping and hurting, and as the story of Frankenstein teaches us, we should respect the mystery of life and not be too quick to try to mimic it. Taylor's story of washing out the dead cells in a heart and putting new ones back in seemed very startling to me: it felt like something Dr. Frankenstein would have done. Cells may be one of the building blocks of human life -- but there is also a spiritual element to life, and various belief systems have takes on what this spiritual element consists of, whether Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. As these belief systems suggest, the spirit is that part which lives forever already. So when I hear people talk about making the body live forever, I feel like they are disregarding these belief systems, especially the Christian belief system which holds that the body will join the soul in the resurrection and indeed live forever. So perhaps there is a lack of faith on the part of scientists that they feel they must make the body live forever without respect to the God Who created it. Of course, if the scientists do not share in that specific belief system it is not likely that they would feel compelled to accept its doctrines on faith, mortality, sin, immortality, etc. So I can understand why they would want to find anti-aging cures. As for me, I accept this belief system and accept aging and death as a natural phenomenon that is explained in the doctrines of the belief system. I accept that we all suffer -- but I also trust that there is more to life than just this world -- so I do not think that this is all we have. I feel that the real anti-aging cure is with the Creator of life.

References

Tippett, K. (2010). Stem Cell Untold Story. On Being. Retrieved from http://www.onbeing.org/program/stem-cells-untold-stories/178