Rayilyn,
I usually try to avoid discussing moral/ethical issues. I find legal
issues much easier to discuss. S.1899 (the Brownback bill) and S.2439 (the
Feinstein-Spector bill) are attempts to legislate morality. The law is often
used for this purpose, but the law is not necessarily equipped to deal with
such issues, particularly where there is much controversy and division of
opinion as to the proper moral position. These bills employ a legal startegy
to get around Roe v Wade and to impose a new legal definition of the
beginning of life which is earlier in time than that implied in Roe v Wade.
These bills may also be part of a long-term startegy to overrule Roe v Wade.
And, of course, the stated purpose of these bills is to prohibit human
cloning.
These bills complicate the issue of the morality/ethics of stem cell
research by entwining stem cell or somatic cell nuclear transplantation with
cloning. The myriad of strong moral objections to cloning (commonly referred
to as reproductive cloning) overshadows the positive supports for stem cell
transplantation (commonly referred to as therapeutic cloning). I think that
any successful argument for allowing stem cell transplantation, and for
obtaining a legal definition of the beginning of life at a later point in
time and for allowing stem cell reserach to continue, has to exclude cloning
and focus upon stem cell/ somatic cell nuclear transplantation only.
What I understood initially about stem cell transplantation was that
the original matter in an embryo cell, a fertilized egg, would be removed,
and destroyed, and that new matter would be injected. The new cell would
multiply, become a blastocyst, and then be manipulated to differentiate into
a specific type of cell. When the blastocyst had multipled into a sufficient
quantity of cells, the cells would then be transplanted into the new host.
For instance the blastocyst created by this process would be manipulated into
differentiating into millions of brain cells which would be transplanted into
the brain of the PWP. The destruction of the original embryo cell, the
fertilized egg, would be labelled a death, a destruction of life, by various
religious and right-to-life groups under their moral code and under S1899.
The embryo would not be given independent rights under S 1899, which would
not be allowed under Roe v Wade, but the embryo would be protected because
its destruction, or death, or killing, would be prohibited.
S1899 and S 2439 have introduced the new phrase, "Somatic cell nuclear
transplantation," into our national political vocabulary and disrupted my
initial understanding of stem cell research. Now, we have to look also at
the legal and moral issues of injecting the new cell matter into any
somatic, or tissue-specific, non-embryo cell and of injecting the new cell
matter into the patient's own somatic cell. S1899 prohibits somatic cell
nuclear transplantation when the original cell is either a somatic cell or an
embryo cell and whether the original cell is fertilized or NOT because the
laboratory process produces a "living organism (at any stage of
development)." Electrical stimulation is given to the newly-created cell to
push it to multiply and to differentiate. According to S 1899, a living
organism is created at this point in time, obviously at a very early stage of
development, but "at any stage of development" under the words of the
definition of life in the bill.
S 1899 provides a legal, and a moral, definition as to the beginning
of life which is much further back in time than the implied definition of the
beginning of life as quickening or viablity in Roe v Wade. This reminds me of
the arguments of the Catholic Church that birth control methods such as the
birth control pill, because it interferes with ovulation, and the IUD,
because it sloughs the eggs off the side of the uterus, cause the destruction
of life. This also makes the reach of the prohibitions in S1899 very broad
because there are potential destructions of life at various points in time:
When the cell is an embryo cell and is fertilized , there is
destruction of life when (1) the injection of new matter into the
fertilized cell destroys that cell.
When the cell is an embryo and is not fertilized, there is
destruction of life when (2) the injection of new matter into the
non-fertilized cell destroys that cell but the definition of the beginning of
life is reaching back further in time to the egg by itself, non-fertilized,
with no sperm involved. This provision also would counteract any
development of new laboratory techniques to perform the stem cell/somatic
cell nuclear transpolantation procedure on non-fertilized eggs.
When the cell is fertilized, the laboratory procedure is
successful, and the newly created, multiplied and differentiated cells are
transplanted into the new host,
there is an additional destruction of life, the destruction of life (3) when
the transplanted cells are not allowed to develop as a human being.
When the cell is not fertilized, the laboratory procedure is
successful, and the newly created, multiplied and differentiated cells are
transplanted into the new host, you also have the additional destruction of
life (4) when the transplanted cells are not allowed to develop as a human
being.
The proponents of S1899 would obviously scoff at S2439 because the
implied definition of the beginning of life in S2439 is later in time when
there is implant[ation of] the product of nuclear transplantation into a
uterus or the functional equivalent of a uterus." S2439 clearly prohibits
human cloning as "unsafe, immoral, and acceptable," but it also clearly
allows stem cell research and stem cell transplantation. It would allow stem
cells to be transplanted into the brain of the PWP. I think that the
passage of S2439 would be a huge victory for the religious and right-to-life
groups because the implied legal definition of the beginning of life is
substantially earlier than it is now, but the religious and right-to-life
groups want their morally-defined, earlier point-in-time embodied in the
legal definition of life in this legislation and they are not receptive to
compromise.
The House of Representatives passed a bill which is very similiar to S
1899; my understanding is that the debate on the bill referred to an essay
which was published in the Washington Post the day before the debate. The
author of the essay, Murray Krauthammer, a member of President Bush's Council
on Bioethics, argued a universal, absolute moral value that human embryos
should not be created and then destroyed for the benefit of others. This
moral prohibition against the destruction of life meant that the original
cell, the cell created in the laboratory, and the multiplied and
differentiated mass of cells had to be protected from destruction in the stem
cell/somatic cell nuclear transplantation process. The bill in the House
passed rather quickly, and President Bush announced that he would sign the
bill if it were passed by the Senate.
When S1899 was introduced in the Senate, it was a different ball game.
Various bills were introduced in opposition to the ban against stem cel
l/somatic cell nuclear transplantation and the moral definition of the
beginning of life in S 1899. The bills in the Senate were consolidated into
S2439 which took a different moral position, more akin to situational ethics,
and which contained a legal definition of the beginning of life which would
allow stem cell/somatic cell nuclear transplantation to continue. Suddenly,
there were arguments being made about the actual potential for the life of
these cells and the existing needs, suffering, and diminished quality of life
of about 100 million people who could possibly benefit from stem cell/somatic
cell nuclear transplantation. And, in the Senate committee hearing on these
bills, Michael J. Fox was applauded after he gave his testimony in favor of S
2439.
S2439, with its definition of the beginning of life being between that
in S1899 and that in Roe v Wade, may be the compromise, or the beginning of a
compromise, between the religious and right-to-life groups and the proponents
of stem cell transplantation as medical treatment or cure for chronic
diseases. Such a compromise on stem cell research in the Senate may be
easier to achieve than a compromise in the area of abortion because you are
comparing laboratory-created cells, which do not have any potential for
becoming an actual, legal human with existing legal persons who have
significant medical needs (and who also can vote and have the potential to
vote political representatives out of office). However, I don't know if even
such a political compromise is possible due to the strong moral positions
involved, particularly those of the religious/pro-life groups, and, even if
there is a current political compromise worked out eventually in Congress,
the battle to legislate morality as to the legal definition of the beginning
of life is far from over. Katie from Green Bay
P.S. Section 2 , The Findings section, in S2439 has many arguments for
allowing stem cell transplantation; this might be helpful to you in writing
your column. See S2439 at http://www.senate.gov/ Also look at the recent
postings on this list from L. Herman re: PAN and CAMR.
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