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--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 08:45:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Morality and Medicine: Reconsidering Embryo Research I especially call your attention to 3 paragraphs just below, copied from the very end of the article, which I think clarify the central ethical and political issues of this debate, and to Senators McCain's and Hatch's repsonses to the questions - "What makes us human beings?" and "What is pro-life?" Linda "... OTHERS have been asking themselves that same question, however, and coming up with answers that are not always clear, even to themselves. "I do believe that life begins at conception," said Senator McCain, the Arizona Republican. But he said he was persuaded to support the research because the embryos may be lawfully discarded anyway. That argument also helped convince Mr. Hatch, who says he believes human beings are created in the womb, not test tubes. "People who are pro-life," the senator said, "are also pro-life for existing life." By coming out strongly in support of the research, Mr. Hatch added, he hopes he can provide President Bush "the leeway" to do the same. Clearly, that is what patient advocates are hoping as well. "It's the conservatives that are going to save the day for us," said Mr. Perry, of the Alliance for Aging Research. "God bless them." FULL ARTICLE Morality and Medicine: Reconsidering Embryo Research By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG WASHINGTON: IN his more than two decades as a United States senator, Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, has been firmly, fervently, against abortion. But about a year ago, Mr. Hatch said, he began wrestling with a question that challenged his beliefs: should the government pay for research on stem cells derived from human embryos, which are destroyed by the experiments? A former medical liability lawyer, Mr. Hatch studied the science. A Mormon, he studied his faith. In quiet moments, he prayed. "I have searched my conscience," the senator said last week, explaining why he has broken with abortion opponents to support the research. "I just cannot equate a child living in the womb, with moving toes and fingers and a beating heart, with an embryo in a freezer." Religion and science often collide, but politics is the arena in which, however painfully, they must coexist. Rare is the medical advance that has not forced politicians to grapple with matters better suited to theologians. Organ transplants raised questions about the precise moment of death. In vitro fertilization forced an examination of what makes a mother a mother. Cloning, a technology that might save lives, challenges the sanctity, and uniqueness, of human life. This collision is especially brutal in the debate over embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to grow into any tissue or organ in the body, and therefore hold promise for treating disease. The issue was merely an abstraction until three years ago, when Dr. James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin became the first to isolate the cells, from excess embryos kept in cold storage at fertility clinics. Now moral convictions about when life begins are running smack into the real-world problems of relatives and constituents who are sick and desperate for cures. As Mr. Hatch's soul-searching suggests, the debate is forcing many conservatives to reconsider the mantra of the anti-abortion movement: that life begins at conception. Just as liberals who favor a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy have discovered that they hold nuanced views about the morality of abortion, so too, it turns out, are there nuances among conservative abortion opponents. "What we are finding is that it is not such a clear and bright line, even within the pro-life camp, because so many people are in that muddled middle, with complex views about what is the moral status of an embryo," said Dr. Thomas Murray, president of the Hastings Center, a bioethics institute. "The prospect of embryonic stem cells eventually leading to important new therapies is tipping the balance for a lot of people who think that embryos are not just bits of meaningless tissue." In the Senate alone, those for whom the balance has tipped include Connie Mack, Strom Thurmond, Gordon Smith and John McCain, as well as Mr. Hatch. In addition, 30 House Republicans signed a letter last week supporting federal financing for embryonic stem cell research. NOW the question is whether George W. Bush will add his name to that list. Last week, the National Institutes of Health sent the president a review of the scientific literature, which concluded the research promises a "a dazzling array" of treatments for a range of ills, from heart disease to diabetes. The report landed at a White House that is deeply divided, with the secretary of health and human services, Tommy G. Thompson, arguing for funding, and the president's senior adviser, Karl Rove, arguing against. For Mr. Bush, who believes, according to his spokesman, that "life should not be destroyed to save or make another life," the stakes are high. The White House is still recovering from Senator James Jeffords' departure from the Republican Party, which gave the Democrats control of the Senate and raised questions about whether Mr. Bush should do more to appeal to moderates. At the same time, in debates over global warming and missile defense, Mr. Bush has been stung by accusations that his policies ignore science in favor of politics. "It is a difficult issue on an emotional and personal level, and it has very volatile politics," said Ralph Reed, the conservative political strategist who advised President Bush during last year's campaign. "Any time you are dealing with a policy issue that combines real human beings that are hurting with deeply held moral beliefs, it is always a very tough final call." The White House is trying to come up with a compromise. Among the plans being considered, according to people familiar with the debate, is one that would prohibit embryonic stem cell studies but increase support for experiments involving adult stem cells, which are extracted from blood and bone marrow and therefore pose no moral questions. However the N.I.H. report concluded that, for some purposes, the embryonic cells are clearly superior. Any compromise, of course, will alienate some voters. The question is who, and how many. "The political mathematics for the Bush White House here is really a question of quantity versus quantity," said David J. Garrow, an historian at Emory University who has written about abortion politics. Some polls, including a recent one by ABC News, find most Americans favor the research. But, Dr. Garrow said, the White House must still worry about the extremely vocal "minority of antis" who do not. As the debate continues, thousands of Americans with incurable illnesses are hanging in the balance. "Patients and the organizations that represent their interests are in a state of high anxiety," said Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research, a nonprofit group in Washington. "We are waiting on tenterhooks." For the research to go forward, the Bush administration would have to adopt a rule, issued by the Clinton administration, designed to get around a Congressional ban on embryo research. The rule would permit federally financed experiments on cell lines derived from embryos, but not on the embryos themselves. Opponents say this is splitting hairs. "It is a mistaken notion, or disingenuous, to say you can separate use of the cells from the act of having to destroy the embryos," said Dr. David A. Prentice, a professor of life sciences at Indiana State University, who opposes the research. For Dr. Prentice, life begins when sperm and egg are joined, and a new genome is created. "What makes us a human being?" he asks. "It's the genome." OTHERS have been asking themselves that same question, however, and coming up with answers that are not always clear, even to themselves. "I do believe that life begins at conception," said Senator McCain, the Arizona Republican. But he said he was persuaded to support the research because the embryos may be lawfully discarded anyway. That argument also helped convince Mr. Hatch, who says he believes human beings are created in the womb, not test tubes. "People who are pro-life," the senator said, "are also pro-life for existing life." By coming out strongly in support of the research, Mr. Hatch added, he hopes he can provide President Bush "the leeway" to do the same. Clearly, that is what patient advocates are hoping as well. "It's the conservatives that are going to save the day for us," said Mr. Perry, of the Alliance for Aging Research. "God bless them." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/01/weekinreview/01STOL.html?ex=994991518&e i=1&en=57c54cd6ac849afb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn