John Stonestreet – Page 8

Bioethics and Big Sheep: Guest Column

Nov 19, 2024John StonestreetBioethicsBioethics, Human Cloning

If cloning farm animals is illegal, should society clone children?

Don’t let anyone pull the wool over your eyes, sheep are big business. So big, in fact, they landed one 81-year-old Montana man in jail.

The Washington Post reported recently that Arthur Schubarth was sentenced to six months in federal prison for illegally cloning a giant species of sheep and using it to produce even bigger hybrids for lucrative canned hunts. In 2013, Schubarth acquired tissue from a Marco Polo argali, a rare and protected species of bighorn sheep from Kyrgyzstan. He then contracted with a cloning facility to create embryos of what he called “Montana Mountain King,” a 300-pound hybrid breed with the curling horns sought after by high-dollar hunters.

Schubarth then bred the Mountain King to North American bighorn sheep, resulting in an even larger hybrid species, which he began selling to captive hunting preserves for up to $10,000 a head. He also sold dozens of DNA samples to breeders around the country. So, it’s difficult to know just how many of these Jurassic Park hybrids there are.

Schubarth’s business venture violated numerous conservation and commerce laws. As one assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put it, he risked “introducing diseases and compromising the genetic integrity of our wild [bighorn] sheep populations.”

The bizarre story raises an important question: Why are we so good at recognizing and enforcing ethical limits when it comes to medical or genetic experimentation on animals, but not humans?

These two discussions were, at one point, connected. Remember Dolly the Sheep? It was 30 years ago that the cloned sheep made headlines. Hailed as the first “successful” experiment in cloning, Dolly sparked debate about the promises and limits of this technology, especially about if and how it should be used with humans. Buried in the press coverage was just how unsuccessful this success story was. Dolly only lived about half as long as a normal sheep and was the sole survivor among hundreds of attempts, many of which were deformed.

The implications for humans were among the main reasons that, several years later, then-President George W. Bush banned the cloning of human embryos. At the time, he was widely criticized for standing in the way of science and dashing the hopes of the disabled.

However, the years have vindicated Bush’s policy. The promised cures of human embryonic stem cells never materialized, even after the Obama Administration lifted the ban in 2009. By contrast, non-embryo-destructive methods of stem cell research have yielded hundreds of treatments.

Bush, in fact, approached the issue in a fundamentally different way than his critics and successor. His policy emerged after he convened a remarkable panel of experts. The President’s Council on Bioethics included not only scientists with the knowledge of how to clone and experiment on embryos, but philosophers, ethicists, legal scholars, and even theologians who asked whether we should do this; and if so, when and how. Their work, collected in a volume called Human Dignity and Bioethics, demonstrates the breadth of source material about human personhood and value that was consulted. In addition to loosening restrictions, President Obama replaced the theologians, philosophers, and ethicists from the President’s Council on Bioethics with more scientists and researchers.

The problem with that approach is even more obvious today, when technology has come so far. If an old guy in Montana can pull off a do-it-yourself sheepzilla, imagine what’s happening with human cloning in China. For that matter, compare the concern with Schubarth’s scientific meddling to the widespread indifference of human manufacturing in the United States. IVF, surrogacy, and gamete “donation” have made it possible to create children to-order, often for same-sex couples or those who’d simply rather outsource the work of pregnancy and birth. We buy, produce, and distribute children to couples, throuples, and other relational mix-and-match arrangements without an ethical care in the world. And who knows what technology will make possible tomorrow?

Whatever it will be, we’re not ready. The consistent trend in science is to plow ahead and save concerns about right and wrong for later. By the time someone turns up doing with humans what Arthur Schubarth did with sheep, it will be too late to hit the brakes.

In the presidential debate awhile back, Kamala Harris said we should “trust the experts.” What she didn’t clarify is “which experts?” It’s one thing to master a technique like cloning or IVF. It’s another to know whether to ever use that mastery, evaluate if and how it helps people flourish, and to know who is qualified to decide.

For those questions, we need those who make a habit of asking not only what’s possible or profitable, but what’s right, and what honors the value of every human made in God’s image. Dolly, the sheep nature never intended, got us asking these questions decades ago. Maybe that can happen again.

Time to Call Off All Bets on Sports Gambling: Guest Column

Nov 4, 2024John StonestreetGamblingCasino Gambling, Sports Betting

The addiction of gambling hits not just in dollars, but in human lives.

A few years into widespread legalized sports gambling, the results are in, and it is clear that this industry is devastating for individuals, families, and even sports. In an article for The Atlantic, Charles Faith Lehman states the truth bluntly: “Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake.” The data supports that claim.

$35 billion in bets will be placed on NFL games alone this season. That is about a third more than last year, and 100% more than just six years ago, when sports gambling became legal (again). The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 effectively banned sports gambling in most places, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the law in 2018, paving the way for states to regulate their own industries. Today, in 38 states plus Washington, D.C., there are no meaningful regulations.

As a result, sportsbooks have raked in over $300 billion in just six years. Obviously, that money did not come from the winners. According to Lehman, the return of sports gambling “has caused a wave of financial and familial misery” that “disproportionately falls on the most economically precarious households.” In other words, those who have the least money to lose do the vast majority of losing.

The damage is enormous. For every dollar spent on betting, household investing fell by an average of two dollars. Since 2018, there have been large increases in over-drafted bank accounts and maxed out credit cards. Legalized sports gambling has increased “the risk that a household goes bankrupt by 25 to 30 percent,” and it has caused debt delinquency to surge.

This financial strain, in turn, worsens social pathologies. According to research cited by Lehman, an upset loss for an NFL home team correlates to a 10% spike in male domestic abuse. Overall, states with legalized sports gambling have seen an estimated 9% increase in “intimate-partner violence.”

Given this data comes from the same states just a few years apart, it is highly unlikely these correlations are mere coincidences. Sports gambling is causing financial ruin and domestic violence in homes. As Lehman put it, measuring this industry is more than counting dollars and cents. It is counting the cost to human lives, especially to women and children dragged into a destructive and addictive pastime.

In the age of smartphones, betting has become easier than ever. Wagers can be placed on virtually all aspects of a game, from individual pitches to how long the national anthem lasts. People can make bets from home without traveling to the seedy part of town. Notifications in eye-catching apps and a deluge of catchy ads with false promises open up the industry to people who might never have otherwise gambled.

And legalized sports gambling corrupts sports. Tennis players, Olympians, and NBA referees have all been caught fixing games and matches. Last year, the NFL suspended five players for gambling-related violations, and a Sportradar analysis found a 250% year-over-year increase in suspicious matches in basketball alone.

According to Lottery USA, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one in over 302.6 million. Powerball is roughly one in 292.2 million. For comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about one in a million. The odds are slightly better in sports betting because, as the adage goes, “The house always wins.” Sportsbooks don’t make $300 billion in six years by minting millionaires out of their customers.

The national experiment with sports gambling has failed miserably. Laws are often necessary to protect freedom and the common good. Though “consenting adults doing what they want with their money” sounds like freedom, it is as misleading as the idea of “consenting adults doing what they want with their bodies.” In both cases, poorly defined freedom enslaves, addicts, and harms others. In both cases, so-called “consent” is anything but consensual for the innocent parties dragged along, and whose lives are ruined as a result.

This scourge of an industry is based on a distorted view of freedom that leaves people in bondage. That should be more than enough reason for the American people to call off all bets and reverse on sports gambling, again.

The Pot Experiment Has Been a Disaster: Guest Column

Oct 28, 2024John StonestreetMarijuanaMarijuana

If marijuana definitively destroys lives, should we be free to smoke?

A few weeks ago, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports publicly supported a measure that would legalize marijuana in Florida. “As an adult,” Portnoy said, “I should be allowed to smoke weed, watch football, and eat pizza on Sunday regardless if I’m at home in Mass[achusetts] or Florida.”

To which, Matt Walsh replied:

Can you point to any state or city in the country where life has been, in any way, measurably improved after legalizing marijuana? Where are the legalization success stories? Give me just one please.

After the rushed social experiment by many states to legalize marijuana, we know the answer to this important question. Study after study has demonstrated that legal pot has been even more disastrous than predicted.

The most obvious consequences have been in basic safety concerns. Legalizing pot correlates with a rise in auto crashes, as well as property and violent crimes. Also, despite the fact that this is now a multibillion-dollar industry, legalizing pot has grown rather than reduced the black market. Promises of health benefits have also proven to be more smoke than substance.

Pot’s most devastating impact has been in the arena of mental health, which has declined to epidemic levels in the U.S. This is largely due to the increased potency of pot that is sold today, which is significantly stronger than what was passed around at Woodstock. Analyzing medical data from 6 million people, researchers in Denmark found that up to 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men could be linked to marijuana use. Though advocates and lawmakers have worked to “decrease the public’s perception of its harm,” as the study’s lead author said, they have misrepresented the reality.

Other studies also have shown a clear link between marijuana use and psychosis. For example, according to a report at CBS News,

[P]eople who smoked marijuana on a daily basis were three times more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis compared with people who never used the drug. For those who used high-potency marijuana daily, the risk jumped to nearly five times.

In other words, pot isn’t a victimless crime and, given its social impact, cannot simply be reduced to a matter of personal freedom. Not only are cannabis users more likely to start using opioids, but the National Academy of Medicine reports that using pot “is likely to increase the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Between 2006 and 2014, emergency room visits for marijuana-induced psychosis tripled to 90,000.

Most troubling of all is the link between pot and teen suicide. According  to Colorado state statistics, the drug was found in the system of some 42% of teens who had taken their own lives, a rate nearly twice that of alcohol and four times that of any other substances. Colorado consistently ranks among the worst states in terms of suicide rates.

Critics will quickly argue that correlation does not imply causation, but connections like this must be investigated. If nearly half of stroke victims took the same medicine, would we wonder if there was a link worth our consideration? Why the reluctance to connect the dots when it comes to marijuana? Since suicide rates have risen every year that pot has been legal, we’re far past giving the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, if lawmakers took up Matt Walsh’s challenge, they’d have to reconsider and recant their promises of personal liberty, not to mention millions of dollars for education and better roads. The science here is all but settled. Pot is bad for individuals, and it’s bad for society.

The kind of freedom Portnoy is claiming ends in slavery, a slavery to one’s own passion. It is a freedom from rules and restraint, not a freedom for the good life. True freedom is a necessary means for human flourishing, but as Chuck Colson often noted, there is no true freedom without virtue. A freedom that wrecks the mind, puts families, children, and neighbors at greater risk, and contributes to general social degradation is not freedom. It’s license built on selfishness.