Newsday Electronic Publishing
Battle Over Stem Cell Research
Ethics, potential medical benefits take center stage
by  Kathleen Kerr - Staff Writer

A legal battle over the fate of thousands of frozen human embryos
has attracted an oddball collection of players: a movie actor, an
attorney who worked on President George W. Bush's Florida
election team, abortion opponents and several scientists.

At stake is potentially groundbreaking stem cell research that
could someday lead to cures for diseases like diabetes,
Parkinson's, and spinal cord injuries.

Stem cells -- possessing a seemingly magical ability to grow
into tissues found throughout the human body -- can be
extracted from human embryos and are a crucial element for
such research.

But the Bush administration has put a hold on federal funding
for research that uses stem cells extracted from human embryos.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has
asked a panel to examine the ramifications of a Clinton
administration rule that would allow the use of human embryos
as a stem cell source.

Now, two lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Washington,
D.C., present opposing arguments in the stem cell debate.

Insisting that embryos are children who should be adopted and
not destroyed in order to provide stem cells for science, two anti-
abortion groups have sued the government in an attempt to
permanently block government funding for embryonic stem cell
research.

The groups, the Tennessee-based Christian Medical Association,
representing 14,000 doctors and dentists, and California-based
Nightlight Christian Adoption, name the Department of Health and
Human Services and Thompson as defendants in the lawsuit.

Nightlight runs a program that arranges for would-be parents to
"adopt” a frozen embryo from couples who have extras left over
from their own infertility procedures. The embryo is implanted in
the uterus of a so-called adoptive mother who then gives birth.
The embryo transfer isn't legally recognized as adoption and is
accomplished via contracts.

Abortion rights advocates, however, contend the lawsuit represents
a back-door attack on abortion rights guaranteed by the Supreme
Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. The lawsuit, they argue, seeks
to define when life begins by treating embryos as adoptable children.

"It's part of the overall effort by opponents of abortion rights to
stop women from having abortions,” said Kate Michelman,
president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights
Action League.

Michelman said the lawsuit, if successful, could harm medical
research by eliminating a source for stem cells. "What most
Americans don't know is their health is being held hostage to
anti-abortion politics,” Michelman said.

But Samuel Casey, an attorney with Human Rights Advocates,
one of two law firms handling the lawsuit, insists the embryos
are "pre-born children” in need of rescue.

"We are seeing a refugee population [the embryos] that nobody
wants,” Casey said. "We should offer them a place where they
can live free. They're on death row now.”

Now, some stem cell researchers have struck back with a lawsuit
that seeks to force the Bush administration to start funding work
involving the controversial cells.

The embryos in question -- preserved in liquid nitrogen in fertility
clinics across the country -- belong to couples who, in a quest for
offspring, underwent fertility treatments and produced a number of
embryos, which were frozen to keep them viable. But once a
pregnancy is achieved and leftover embryos are no longer needed,
they can be destroyed unless they're donated to science.

The legal brouhaha stems from the Clinton administration's
decision late last year to allow the National Institutes of Health
to fund stem cell research but not the actual procedure used to
obtain the cells that destroys embryos. Bush has indicated he
opposes embryonic stem cell research.

Because federal law bans federal funding for experimentation on
embryos, under the Clinton rule, those scientists who receive
government money would not be permitted to extract the cells
from the embryos.

Instead, scientists would receive cells from government-approved
private researchers who would remove them from embryos created
during in vitro fertilization. Embryos could not be created for the
sole purpose of research.

"There's no question that it's a politically awkward situation for
the Bush administration,” says bioethicist Tom Murray, president
of the Hastings Center think tank in Garrison, N.Y.

"On the one hand they have a policy put in place by the previous
administration and they also have a secretary of Health and
Human Services on the record supportive of embryonic stem
cell research,” Murray notes. "On the other side are people and
groups with right-to-life convictions who see the taking apart
of an embryo to create stem cells as murder so I don't doubt the
authenticity of their beliefs.”

Along with Casey, Thomas Hungar, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn
& Crutcher, a Washington law firm, represents the anti-abortion
groups. Hungar worked on the legal team that helped Bush prevail
in the Florida election battle.

"The reason we got involved was because it seemed clear the NIH
[National Institutes of Health] policies were in violation of federal
law, particularly the congressional ban on funding for this type of
research,” Hungar said. "If embryos are destroyed for the
purposes of research then those embryos are not going to
be available for adoption.”

But the scientists who stand to lose funding aren't sitting still.
Along with actor Christopher Reeve of "Superman” fame, seven
scientists have sued to preserve federal funding for their work.
Reeve, paralyzed since a horseback riding accident several years
ago, backs stem cell research, which holds out hope for new
treatments for spinal cord injuries.

Attorney Jeffrey Martin, who practices in Washington, represents
the scientists including stem cell pioneers Dr. James Thomson of
the University of Wisconsin and John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore.

"What we wanted to do was make clear the court heard from people
who are affected by this issue,” Martin said. "There's a very strong
argument for the legality of the guideline.”

The scientists want the government to implement the Clinton
guidelines and to start the approval process for funding requests.
They contend adult stem cells, used in some research, are not as
versatile as those derived from embryos.

Still, some scientists disagree.

David Prentice, a stem cell researcher and professor of life sciences
at Indiana State University, joined the anti-abortion groups in their
lawsuit.

"I see an unlimited potential with the adult stem cells,” Prentice said.
"Our whole thrust is we need to be curing disease but doing it
ethically without any human beings  dying in the process.”

"Our position is that these are children,” says JoAnn Davidson,
director of the Snowflakes program. "It's about these children
and they're killing them off.”

The Snowflakes program is small. Since 1997, just seven babies
have been born to women who "adopted” embryos through
Snowflakes. Four more women are pregnant with embryos they
obtained through the program.

The Snowflakes "adoption” is really just a contract since embryo
adoptions aren't legal; a $3,500 fee covers legal work, contracts,
documentation and shipping embryos from clinics to couples who
want them. Couples then pay their physicians to perform the
implants.

Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive
Medicine and Infertility at Cornell University Medical College
in Manhattan, says he sees nothing wrong with the Snowflakes
program but that it's not true adoption.

"It's embryo donation,” Rosenwaks said. "An embryo is not in
and of itself a definite life. It's not a human life until it's implanted
in the uterus.”

Bioethicist Arthur Caplan, head of the bioethics center at the
University of Pennsylvania, says he doesn't see much point in
the Snowflakes Program.

"The whole concept is daffy,” Caplan said. "In the scheme of
these things, relatively few people would want to do this.

These embryos are not viewed as people by most Americans.”

Now the clock is ticking. A Bush administration response to the
scientists' lawsuit is due in less than 60 days.

http://www.newsday.com/news/daily/stem601.htm

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