Levittown - Jim McKevitt accesses the Internet regularly to keep track of the opposition: politicians, individuals and interest groups who beat the drum to try to force Washington to approve federal funds to finance the use of embryos to harvest stem cells for research.
As soon as he heard that President Barack Obama gave the go-ahead to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, McKevitt fired off an e-mail to the president, calling him a "member of the culture of death.''
McKevitt, 71, is appalled, he said, by the groundswell of support for what he calls an immoral and "pointless" approach to pursuing cures when so many other routes such as adult stem cell research already have shown promise.
"If experimenting on just one embryo would lead to a cure for me, I absolutely would not do it. It's murder of a human being," McKevitt said.
The former runner and weightlifter, once known throughout his Warminster neighborhood for his impromptu barbeques and his garrulous nature, "speaks" by way of an electronic box, which puts voice to the words he types via a small keyboard.
McKevitt's fingers are one of the few motor skills left to him nine years after being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a degenerative disease that causes loss of control of the body's motor skills and, in its later stages, can affect a person's ability to speak, swallow and breathe.
There is no cure for Lou Gehrig's, nor for the metastatic cancer that McKevitt recently was told he had.
A retired insurance worker and a devout Catholic, he said he'd love to get better. He's adamant, however, that he won't take part in any experiment that "costs another life." His wife, Liz, who cares for him with the help of nurses, therapists and the couple's eight children, fully supports her husband's stand.
"It's his choice and he's the only one who knows how much he's suffering," she said, as she gazed at her husband sitting in his wheelchair, his back stiff from constricted muscles. "He's losing ground. I can see it all the time."
Many religious leaders and laity vehemently oppose embryonic stem cell research because of their belief that life begins at conception. Another religious concern is the possibility, some clerics say, that an embryo has a soul and that discarding or experimenting on it is no different from aborting a fetus already implanted in the womb.
McKevitt said he supports scientific efforts to find a cure for ALS and other diseases, short of embryonic research. He knows that, barring a miracle, ALS eventually will take his life. He laments the physical and emotional toll ALS already takes on his body.
McKevitt's sense of humor seems intact. He's quick to crack a joke, using his mechanical voice. But his affliction, along with his staunch opposition to embryonic stem cell research, doesn't diminish his enthusiasm for life.
But the positive outlook he clings to can't always keep sorrow at bay.
"I can't embrace my grandchildren. They've never heard my voice," lamented the grandfather of 15 - "with another on the way," he typed with a beaming smile on his face.
The Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia and a Yale-trained neuroscientist, said that there's as much reason as faith involved for opponents of embryonic stem cell research.
"Mr. McKevitt is also looking reality in the face; he understands what an embryo is. Science fully understands what an embryo is. You don't need any faith at all," said Pacholczyk, who worked for several years as a molecular biologist at Harvard University's medical school at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Pacholczyk, who did post-graduate work in dogmatic theology and bioethics in Rome and has testified before several state Legislatures in the United States, believes that it is "ignorance, not malice" that drives the campaign for scientific experiments on embryonic stem cells and he stresses that recovering ethical and moral high ground in the practice of modern science is a priority.
"I remain optimistic about the future because the truth has the power to reach people. When truth is spoken, something inside the listener resonates," he said.
McKevitt agrees with one fundamental question put forth by Pacholczyk:
"Is it a fact that I was once an embryo? The answer to that question is what matters," the priest said. "If I was not once an embryo, then embryonic stem cell research is acceptable. If I was once an embryo, then (the research) is not acceptable."
"If experimenting on just one embryo would lead to a cure for me, I absolutely would not do it. It's murder of a human being," McKevitt said.
