What You Should Think About Stem Cell Research
"The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a
more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer
believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can
cure after medicine fails."
-H. L. Mencken

The new morning greets us with news that a Nobel Prize has been awarded to
three men involved with breakthroughs in the field of stem cell research. Of
course, their work is not truly controversial. The "mice have souls too"
lobby has yet to make a big splash in our nation's capital. Though this work
did involve embryonic stem cells, it did not involve human cells at all. So,
other than putting "stem cells" on people's minds around the water cooler,
the cultural ripples from this should be minor.
Yet stem cell talk is not at all pointless in a nation that seems to remain
divided by the issue. Reaching for the wisdom of King Solomon, our President
instead demonstrated the wisdom of Solomon Grundy. His approach to an issue
straddling science and theology was, in the end, purely political. Just
before a terrorist conspiracy would give George W. Bush years to show the
world the extent of his spectacularly poor judgment, he issued an executive
order to this effect - the kind of medical waste some people believe to be
sacred must remain medical waste and at no time should be used to save
terminally ill human beings.
Of course that is not the language Karl Rove would craft to explain this
bizarre "worst of both worlds" compromise. Yet that does sum up the order.
One might regard my characterization as unfair based on the fact that
lifesaving stem cell therapies were largely experimental in 2001. So I
suppose I should append "even indirectly" to hit the nail on the head.
However passionate your feelings about human blastocysts and spirituality
might be, the White House action only insures that the fate of these common
byproducts of in vitro fertility (IVF) treatments remains disposal as waste.
Whether or not these microscopic Petri dish inhabitants, with their
theoretical potential to grow into human babies, deserve to be treated as
waste was never the issue. There is little political upside to crushing
thousands of affluent (the process is never cheap) couples' hopes of
parenting their own biological children. IVF can be unreliable. Thus
producing surplus embryos reduces not only the cost, but also the health
risks of repetitive surgery. To put it crudely, when nature and less
invasive methods do not lead to pregnancy, you've got to break a few eggs to
make a baby.
Yet these broken eggs are not always unfertilized. Sometimes the earliest
cell divisions reveal signs indicating a full term pregnancy is unlikely.
Sometimes the first implantation effort succeeds, leaving high grade reserve
embryos no longer wanted by the relevant sperm and egg donors. There have
been symbolic efforts at finding upstanding evangelical Christian women
willing to carry other people's embryos to term in order to avert disposal,
but that is hardly a comprehensive (or sensible) response to the realities
of IVF.
While the fate of unwanted embryos remains grim, so too does the fate of
many Americans with an assortment of degenerative, often terminal,
conditions. The nation may be divided on how much God is offended by the
handling of artificially cultured human embryos, but I would like to think
we are united in wishing there was some hope for people with Parkinson's
Disease or ALS. Then there are people suffering from brain or spinal
injuries that leave them severely disabled with little prospect of recovery
other than a breakthrough in regenerative medicine. Heck, I even think some
consideration should be given to the people who might simply like a new head
of hair or replacement teeth.
There may be workarounds to bypass the theocratic roadblock. In some
contexts, using even more complex procedures, scientists have been able to
cause cells harvested from adults to exhibit some of the crucially useful
behaviors of embryonic stem cells. For the hair and teeth crowd, I suppose
delays related to popular spiritual beliefs may be reasonable. Is it also be
reasonable to wait on opportunities to liberate people from crippling
injuries? Should people dying a slow death from terminal conditions go
unhealed to respect religious demands regarding the treatment of unwanted
IVF embryos?
Fortunately this debate does not require answers to those questions. Because
existing federal policy does not actually accomplish a single thing in the
field of preserving, never mind gestating, surplus embryos; the President's
policy is much worse than it seems at first glance. It delays or denies
possible cures for no higher purpose than to save the man's own public face.
In an impressive display of political scumbaggery, the debate was
complicated by nuances like "it's not really a ban, it's just a way to
insure taxpayer money does not fund this stuff," and "well, they can still
work with a small number of existing lines. That's still research, right?"
There would be no more American wars if our Presidents respected
comparatively sensible pacifists as much as they respect zealots dedicated
to injecting hardline religious dogma into public policy discussions. All
taxpayers have made a huge contribution to finance an effort that somehow
made Iraq a much more deadly and hateful place than it was under the thumb
of a tyrant. Why some citizens felt it was much more unbearable to fund
research into a possible fix for Michael J. Fox's tremors is beyond me.
Precisely which therapies will become practical when is still largely
speculative. Yet there can be no doubt that this field features a rush of
spectacular breakthroughs just waiting to be puzzled out by great thinkers.
In most parts of the world this research is allowed to continue. Yet here in
the United States (sans California,) this critical realm of biotechnology is
practically forbidden territory. Even the most heartless cutthroat
capitalist cannot be happy about surrendering a competitive advantage in a
growing niche . . . all in the name of making George W. Bush appear smart.
It doesn't take much thinking about his 2001 stem cell decision to realize
it makes the sitting President look like a lot of things . . . and "smart"
is not among them. Whatever you think about the potential of adult stem cell
research, there is no justification for perpetuating a "trash only" policy
in the handling of surplus IVF embryos. Any delay in advancing this frontier
can be measured in untold human suffering and large numbers of human deaths.
If anything, continuity with this policy only demonstrates to the world just
how far one particular politician will go to avoid uttering a significant
mea culpa.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 7:24 am and is filed
under politics, science. Tagged: biotechnology, embryo, medicine, policy,
politics, research, science, stem cell, therapy. You can follow any
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Rayilyn Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
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