Faith

Christians Send Warning About ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Donations

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Last Updated on February 19, 2022

File this one under “No good deed goes unpunished.”

A wildly popular effort to raise money for research against one of the most horrific diseases ever is now under fire by some Christians who are posting Facebook messages warning their fellow Christians to “watch where you donate your money,” coming close to shaming people who’ve already donated to an otherwise respectable charity without knowing “the full facts.”

It’s almost as if church people these days look for some chink in the armor of nearly any effort designed to do good.

The posts generally point to a particular site, though I’ve now started seeing actual ice bucket challenge videos mentioning the problem some have with the ALS Association and the research done to stop the disease.

First things first, however.

For those who haven’t paid enough attention to notice, and for those who don’t know, ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, an absolutely horrible illness that robs one of the ability to use limbs, to walk, to speak, and eventually, even to breathe unassisted. There is no cure for the disease, and most, except in extreme cases like that of Dr. Stephen Hawking, die within about five years of diagnosis.

In the ice bucket challenge, someone who is challenged has 24 hours to either dump a bucket of ice water over their heads and donate $10 to the ALS Association, or to not do the ice water part and donate $100. People have been challenging each other to donate — one way or the other — and so far, at last count, the challenge has brought in more than $41 million.

The website Charity Navigator ranks ALSA at four out of five stars in terms of making good use of donated money, a very respectable score for an organization of its type, indicating that about 72% of donations go to research.

So why would anyone have a problem with the challenge?

LifeNews.com, an anti-abortion organization, says some of the money the organization distributes to research programs goes to a research source that has clinical trials that use embryonic stem cells from abortions. The site says one clinical trial contains this in the description:

These stem cells have been engineered from the spinal cord of a single fetus electively aborted after eight weeks of gestation. The tissue was obtained with the mother’s consent.

The website follows this excerpt with a statement of the obvious: “Of course the fetus, from whom the ’tissue’ was taken, did not ‘give consent.'”

The post then asserts that there’s the possibility that this kind of research could encourage more abortions. I find this to be a stunningly ridiculous statement.

The clear majority of people who decide to abort a fetus do so out of convenience, or perhaps, fear. Another percentage may do so because of a variety of health reasons. Anti-abortion advocates like to claim that a smaller percentage than most of us think actually choose abortion because of cases of incest or rape.

What’s the percentage of people who go through the process of getting pregnant so they can then abort the fetus just so scientists have more research material to work with? It can’t be that high.

Don’t get me wrong. If you’re so anti-abortion in your views that you find the use of stem cells from aborted fetuses to be wrong, then I will respect your opinion. I’ll politely disagree with it, but I’ll respect it.

I will disagree because of one major point: What if God Himself, seeing the “scourge” of abortion in our society, has at least made for the possibility that some life-giving hope can come from the tragedy of a life never lived? We can’t know this couldn’t happen. And for anyone who is an anti-abortion advocate who has argued that even cases of rape or incest shouldn’t be eligible for abortion because “God wanted that life to happen” can’t argue against the possibility that God wanted the possibility of a cure to happen from stem cells without finding themselves caught in a double standard: if rape or incest violate God’s laws, you’d have to believe God would specifically break His own rules to make a birth happen; if you’re willing to go there, you should be willing to believe the possibility that God might therefore violate His own rules to help us find a miracle cure through the foundations of life itself.

For the record, I think it’s wrong to abort a fetus just because one doesn’t want to “deal” with a baby. But I think it’s not up to me to prevent people I don’t know from doing so if they’ve come to that decision. And once the decision has been made and carried out, if something positive can come out of it, then perhaps that life that never had a chance to happen may be part of something wonderful.

Maybe it’s not the way God would have intended it if the couple left Him in control of their lives from the start of the process. But maybe it is also something God has provided for so that everything is not lost completely.

If you’re able to give to ALS research, I encourage you to do so. If you’re like me, in a place where $100 is a bit steep at this particular moment, give what you can when you can.

And if you’re not comfortable donating to research unless it’s clear that it doesn’t use stem cells that come from abortion, then please donate to other ALS research programs that don’t rely on that particular kind of research.

But those who have the means to help shouldn’t refuse to help at all.

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.

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