Great article by Ellen Goodman...
FROM: The Boston Globe
March 6, 2003
SECTION: OP-ED; Pg. A15
HEADLINE: OUTLAWING SCIENCE
BY ELLEN GOODMAN
" NEVER AGAIN WILL I UNDERESTIMATE THE COMMITMENT OF THE US HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES TO HOMELAND SECURITY. WHILE THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS ON AN
EMOTIONAL TOGGLE SWITCH, ALTERNATING BETWEEN ORANGE AND YELLOW ALERT, THE
REPRESENTATIVES NEVERTHELESS HAVE TAKEN TIME OUT TO PROTECT OUR FAIR
COUNTRY FROM ANOTHER BREED OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINALS: PATIENTS.
Last week, the House passed a ban against all forms of human cloning.
Not
just against reproductive cloning of embryos to make babies, but also
against
therapeutic cloning for research to cure diseases.
The bill, if passed by the Senate, would make it illegal for
scientists,
those biological terrorists, to work on this promising research within
our
borders. But just to make the picture complete, it would also turn
patients into
criminals if they imported such medical therapy from abroad.
Don't you feel safer already? Just imagine some latter-day patients
arriving back in the country. Not only would they have to remove their
shoes and
have their carry-ons checked for dirty bombs, they'd have their bodies
checked
for dirty cures. If their Alzheimer's or Parkinson's treatment, their
heart
disease or spinal cord cure came from cloning research, they'd be liable
for a
$1 million fine and 10 years in jail.
How would you like to be the person arresting Christopher Reeve at the
gate?
This little piece of homeland security comes, not surprisingly, in the
wake
of the Raelian media invasion. The Raelians, you may recall, believe that
all of
us are the cloned descendants of extraterrestrials who apparently did not
get
frisked at the entry gate to the stratosphere.
Last December, followers of the white-garbed, topknotted leader
announced the
birth of the first cloned baby. One cult's hoax became an entire
culture's
wake-up call.
For some time, there's been nearly unanimous agreement against
treating
people like Dollys. Many of us have been calling for a ban on
reproductive
cloning. But that ban on babies has been thwarted by those who insist on
criminalizing medicine as well.
Anyone who has followed this debate and these debaters is aware that
that
real argument is not about science, but politics. It's not about the
status of
illnesses like diabetes; it's about the status of the embryo.
As bioethicist Art Caplan says, "The House vote reflects just one
thing: the
desire to get legal status for an embryo. This is the back door way to
get it
done. They want to get it into law that you can't destroy an embryo
because it
is a person."
Cloning itself involves taking an egg, removing its nucleus, and
adding the
nucleus of an adult cell - say a skin cell - back into it. It's hoped
that the
tailor-made stem cells could eventually be used in regenerative medicine.
But
the cloned embryo can't become a baby unless it's transplanted into a
womb.
The scientific and moral debate over the embryo is a long and heated
one.
When the microscope was first invented, embryologists claimed to see
teeny-weeny
people in the heads of the spermatozoa. Some modern politicians sound
like they
share the same view, but modern science sees an embryo as a potential
life or a
blueprint for life. To say that a blueprint is a human being, says
Caplan, is
like saying that the lumber and nails at Home Depot are a house.
Nevertheless, an embryo has a much higher moral status than lumber and
nails.
No one is suggesting that we clone embryos for frivolous research into,
say,
perfume or face cream. But what about research that may alleviate
suffering and
illness?
Those who oppose this research talk ruefully about "creating a life to
destroy it," but what about saving a life? Does the value of an embryo in
a
petri dish trump that of a child with a spinal cord injury in a
wheelchair?
Enough to turn a patient into an expatriate?
If the House bill becomes law it will be a legal edge to revisit Roe
v. Wade
and in vitro fertilization and genetic testing. If cooler heads prevail
in the
Senate - which last year voted for a cloning ban on babies, not medicine
- then
we are likely back to the status quo. An unregulated stalemate.
Abortion politics is already costing us our lead in this cutting edge
research. We've seen the beginning of a brain drain of American
scientists to
Britain. Countries from China to Sweden are moving ahead under the strict
ethical regulations of an international agreement we refuse to sign.
Meanwhile at home, President Bush came out in favor of the House bill,
saying
it would "ensure protection of human life as the frontiers of science
expand."
But this is where those expanding "frontiers of science" are stopped
cold: right
at the borders of the United States.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is [log in to unmask]
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