The Tampa Tribune
Jul 10, 2001
Embryonic stem cell research takes the most ``pro-life'' position
By Ellen Goodman

BOSTON - I suppose that those of us who have been in this
struggle awhile can be forgiven for taking a little pleasure at
the civil war erupting among our opponents. Suddenly,
politicians who call themselves ``pro-life'' are fighting over who
deserves to wear that uniform.

Orrin Hatch, an anti-abortion stalwart, is now saying defensively
that ``people who are pro-life are also pro-life for existing life.''
Our point exactly. Isn't this why pro- choice folks resent the
co-opting of the term ``pro-life''?

But smugness won't do. We are witnessing what happens
to every thoughtful person who wades into the moral terrain
of reproductive technology. THIS TIME, THE FIRM line drawn
by the pro-life forces - life begins at conception - begins to
soften. The simple battle cry - a fertilized egg is a human being -
begins to develop a counterpoint. The solid ground under the
absolutists is beginning to shake.

This civil strife is over embryonic stem cells. These cells,
harvested from 5-day-old fertilized eggs, may offer the best
hope - better than adult stem cells - for curing some pretty
awful diseases from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's to juvenile
diabetes. So the Bush administration must decide whether
the government will fund research that uses stem cells from
fertility clinic embryos.

The argument over using the ``leftovers'' of couples who
have given such permission has divided old anti-abortion
allies. On the one hand, senators and former senators like
Strom Thurmond and Connie Mack and Gordon Smith have
come to agree with Hatch that stem cell research is
``the most pro-life position'' because of the possibility
of saving lives. On the other hand, Republican House leaders
like Dick Armey and Tom DeLay and J.C. Watts warned Bush:
``It's not pro-life to rely on an industry of death even if the
intention is to find cures for diseases.''

The president, stalling for time, searching for an elusive
compromise, has said he will decide ``in a while.'' But which
will it be? Using the stem cells for potentially life-saving
research? Or letting the embryos remain in some fertility clinic
locker to be frozen or destroyed?

To condemn stem cell research as an ``industry of death,'' you
must begin by opposing in vitro fertilization. The Catholic
Church, consistent if nothing else, opposes the creation
as well as the destruction of a fertilized egg outside of the
womb.

But most Americans regard IVF as a blessing for many couples
and see fertility clinics as places where life begins. So,
as bioethicist Bonnie Steinbock of the University at Albany
says, the political wrangling must leave these people scratching
their heads.

``You mean,'' she says, imagining their conversations, ``creating
surplus embryos is fine, discarding embryos is fine, keeping them
in the freezer in perpetuity is fine, the only thing that is not fine
is using them for medical research?''

Many who are normally pro-life, says Steinbock, cannot reconcile
discarding or freezing eggs as more respectful of life than using
them to find a cure. Those who may not identify with a desperately
pregnant woman in search of an abortion find themselves siding
with a desperately sick person in search of a cure.

In some ways, the endless abortion argument has driven all other
discussion over reproduction to the extremes. At one end, the
fertilized egg is talked about as little more than tissue. On the
other end, it is given the full moral stature of a human being.

Those who favor abortion rights have been challenged and
sometimes divided by the grim choices of late-term abortions.
Until now though, as Thomas Murray of the Hastings Center
says, ``The pro-life movement has been able to dodge a problem
within their ranks for many years: the moral status of the very
early embryo, prior to implantation, perhaps not even within
a woman's body.''

Now, in this civil war over ``life,'' they face a parallel divide,
``Most people,'' says Murray, ``do not view either birth control
as murder, or IVF then freezing as equivalent to placing your
5-year-old in the deep freeze.'' IF THERE IS ONE THING that
comes out of this political skirmish, it's the understanding that
an embryo created in a dish is not a thing and not a person.
We cannot use embryos for frivolous purposes. ``We don't
make earrings out of them, we don't use them in high school
labs,'' says Steinbock. But we can, with seriousness and
respect, use them for medical research that will, one hopes,
save lives.

Yes being ``pro-life'' also means being ``pro-life for existing life.''

Those who now call themselves pro-life and pro-stem cell research
have had to give up the simple and simplistic idea that a fertilized
egg is a full and equal human life. Welcome. There's plenty of room
under the banner that reads: It's more complicated than that.

Ellen Goodman is a Boston Globe columnist. Her e-mail address is
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http://www.tampatrib.com/News/MGA83DORYOC.html

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