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The Tampa Tribune Jun 19, 2001 Stem-cell research and embryonic life collide along an agonizingly fine line Last month President Bush mailed a carefully worded letter to Robert Best, president of the anti-abortion Culture of Life Foundation. In it, he expressed his views on stem-cell research. ``I oppose Federal funding for stem-cell research that involves destroying human embryos,'' the president said. ``I support innovative medical research on life-threatening and debilitating diseases, including promising research on stem cells from adult tissues.'' Therein is the position of his political advisers, which lends weight to stories in both The Washington Post and The New York Times that describe the battle royal among administration officials over the most important social policy decision facing them. SOMETIME IN THE NEXT few weeks, the president must decide whether the federal government will continue to fund embryonic stem-cell research. His political advisers understandably fear the political consequences should Bush reject their advice and continue funding the research: He could lose many of his pro-life supporters and the Catholic Church, whose many members he is intent on winning over. On the other hand, his scientific and social policy advisers - particularly Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, long an anti-abortion governor in Wisconsin - argue that forfeiting the benefits of continuing the research would be a greater political risk. The president should listen to them. There have been promising results in research using adult stem cells. But the science using embryonic stem cells is more advanced. It offers the best, simplest and safest means of establishing cell lines that can last indefinitely. Stem cells are ``master cells'' that with chemical prompting can develop into nearly any organ in the body. Scientists foresee the day when stem cells developed under highly controlled and regulated circumstances can be used to cure or help in the treatment of brain tumors, bone marrow transplants after chemotherapy and metastatic cancer. The problem facing the president and the researchers is that advances made with cells obtained from embryos entail different policy responses than do those from other human tissue. These concern moral and religious values, as well as the scientific imperative. Douglas Melton, chairman of the department of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, told the The New York Times that the administration's policy, as described in Bush's letter, does not necessarily rule out federal grants for research with embryos obtained from fertility clinics. ``It's an open question whether a frozen embryo should be considered to be alive,'' Melton said. ``A frozen embryo has the potential for life, but that does not mean that it is living.'' Indeed, after five years an embryo created by in vitro fertilization is no longer viable and would be discarded. Nevertheless, Melton's statement is just the kind of assertion that enrages opponents of embryonic stem-cell research. An embryo is life that must be honored. Conception in a petri dish does not create a mass of cells ``capable of life.'' It is life, worthy of respect. To invite research using cells retrieved from fetal tissue raises serious ethical questions because there is a link between the benefits of the research and the early destruction of life. Yet the retrieval of these cells, which science has shown have the capacity to regenerate, offers hope for remedying the deadliest diseases and most debilitating injuries. We are unwilling to delegate ethical issues to scientists who reject out of hand any impediments to knowledge. We accept the view that early embryonic stages are not "part human,'' but the developing stages of a whole human being. They are worthy of respectful treatment. We agree with Robert Bartley, editor of The Wall Street Journal, who wrote, ``I would find a funeral service for a blastocyst grotesque.'' The National Bioethics Advisory Commission took the position that an embryo must be treated with dignity, but that this earliest stage of life can be differentiated from a fully formed human being. AS THE RESEARCH RULES now stand, embryos cannot be created for experimentation. Only those used in fertility treatments that would otherwise be discarded would be used, and then only after complete explanations were given to parents, who must consent. And we note that the commitment of federal funds offers a basis for public review and monitoring of the research. As delicate a subject as it is, we doubt that stem cells will resound as an issue of great weight with ordinary voters. Bush should weigh what Bartley said: ``One has to be an intellectual to get excited about the rights of the zygote.'' That may answer the political question. What remains inexplicable to many of us former zygotes is the notion that our humanness is incrementally acquired. http://www.tampatrib.com/News/MGA0CO2A7OC.html ********* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn