Embryonic Stem Cells From Dead Embryos
Contrary to the major international front page splash over Advanced Cell Technology's embryonic stem cell non breakthrough, this story, which could be a bonafide major advance in solving the ethical dilemma surrounding ESCR, only received minor media coverage. Why? In my view, because it would not undermine President Bush's embryonic stem cell funding policy--and that is the prism through which the media judges how to report stem cell stories.
Nonetheless, it appears that researchers have been able to derive viable ESC lines from dead embryos. If so, there would be no problem garnering federal funding, either under the Bush policy or the Dickey Amendment, since the research would not involve the destruction of embryos. (When I was at a bioethics conference in Rome last year, some of scientists involved with this idea presented their concept. I was impressed.)
If the ESCR ethical dilemma has indeed been worked out, it is worth at least as much attention as the ACT embryonic stem cell non breakthrough. But again, it doesn't hurt Bush's policy so the media perceives it as less news worthy. Also, don't expect the scientific community to jump and cheer. They are after more than full funding of ESCR. They want their values to control the culture.
Here is the link to the original paper. (HT LifeEthics.org.)
We will see where it goes from here.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:00 AM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
I've posted comments and the link to the original Stem Cells article at LifeEthics.org.
The editors at Stem Cell deserve the highest honors for making the article Open Access.
I agree that we probably won't hear much positive comment about the line that was grown.
What do you think about using late arrested embryos? Wouldn't that make more sense that the earlier ones, since they would be more likely to actually be dead?
I wonder about the rate of twinning in IVF embryos. With all these embryos going to 4 or 5 days, someone is bound to be seeing twinning.
While this may not technically violate his policy, isn't this just as bad?
Why would we want another procedure to encourage the destruction of human embryos in the name of "scientific research"?
Tim
10,703 days
Yes, I would find enthusiasm for this fairly disturbing. We are kidding no one if we think researchers would not just thaw the embryos and leave them out on the counter until they were dead in order to use their cells. And who is to stop them? It's not like it costs any money to kill them, so the issue of "funding" their destruction scarcely arises. And if it did, they could just punch out the clock, go to an unfunded part of the building, set the embryos out to thaw, and come back later when they were dead to harvest the cells. This is good news? Not in my book.
Let's remember that pro-lifers *used to* argue strenuously against federal funding for aborted fetal tissue research. National Right to Life Committee ten years ago had article after article on why this was bad, and they used to tell us that we should still worry about voting pro-life because, among other things, this would help put people in place who wouldn't fund research using tissue from aborted fetuses. Yet those fetuses were already dead. No one thought it wonderful and ethical to do research using their bodies nor to fund it. Everyone knew it would encourage, reward, and exploit their killing.
That was then, this is now. A couple of years after Bush came into office, Family Research Council revealed that his NIH was funding research using stem cells from aborted fetuses. Temporary big stink. The NRLC *explicitly* said that it was no longer objecting to this because it was more worried about the embryonic issue, this because the embryonic issue could involve the development of embryo farms and killing on a larger scale. End of discussion--but on pragmatic, not ethical grounds. Not a single article has since appeared in NRL News about the badness of funding aborted fetal tissue research.
And now, we're supposed to be pleased about dead embryo cell research? It's very much the same thing. Well, if you're just harvesting the cells from their bodies, and they're already dead...
One added point occurs to me: As I recall, during the Clinton administration a proposal was tossed around in which the federal government would have funded research using embryonic cells, but the cells would have been actually harvested using "private money." This was widely derided by all pro-life groups as a silly distinction that would do nothing to mitigate the ethical problems. Basically, the researcher would just have some place that would be considered "unfunded" or some period of time in his day when he was ostensibly being paid by someone else--his university, for example. In that time and place, he would do the embryo-destructive act, harvesting the stem cells. Then he'd come "back" onto federal funding and use that for all the interesting research from there on out.
Of course, no pro-lifer thought this a good idea.
But if the President were to embrace and pro-lifers were to hail and support funding for research using cells "taken from dead embryos," of course something very similar would arise, and exactly the same objections could be made. Are we really going to say that it's _bad_ to fund research using stem cells taken from embryos when the taking of the cells is itself the act that kills the embryos, but _good_ to fund research using cells from dead embryos when they are killed first and then, using federal dollars, their stem cells taken and research done? This is ethically unpromising, to put it mildly.
I think knowing the history of pro-life arguments and struggles even in the past 20 years is instructive here.
Please don't miss the forest for the trees. The Bush policy has forced the issue of the moral value of nascent human life to remain on the table. As a result, scientists are striving to find ways to obtain ES cells without destroying embryos along several fronts, including this one. If a technique is truly found, it would be cause for celebration, not criticism. I think such techniques, which would include adult/ubmilical cord blood in treatments and other forms of pluripotent cells for research, may indeed be found.
Or to put it more succinctly, which I am not always good at, being a lawyer and all: This is an ethical debate, not a science debate. IF, and I repeat, if, the ethical issue is resolved (ethically), I hope we could all come together and support that research.
Well, in this case, I'm afraid commentator Tim (whom I don't know and never heard of before seeing his comment here) and I are saying that funding this research would not be ethical, because it would encourage the killing of embryos so that cells could be harvested from them for funded research after they were dead. Same as the argument that was made for so long (till it was pragmatically ditched) against the ethics of funding research using "tissue" from aborted fetuses.
Of course this is an ethical debate. We admit that. I just suspect we're going to disagree on the ethics of funding "dead-embryo cell research."
Adult and umbilical cord cells are in an entirely different category. No one has to die for us to use them--either after or before they are harvested. That's why, of course, they aren't sources of _embryonic_ cells.
Well, that would be to destroy them by another means and would not qualify for what I think these scientists are trying to achieve scientifically and ethically. IF, there are dead embryos, it would not be unethical to use their cells. That's all we are looking at with this story for now.
Yes, but embryos don't die in car accidents.
I think there's perhaps a false analogy back of this to things like dead-donor organ transplant. There aren't just dead embryos "found" out there or accidentally dying in life situations, as there are in the case of ordinary walking-around humans or even born infants. But outside-uterus embryos are entirely the creatures of the lab, and *of course* they would be killed so that their cells could be harvested, if this research were to work and be funded with coveted federal dollars. There would be no possible practical way to regulate the funding so that this would not happen. I think we have to think about these things _before_ we become enthusiastic about and encourage the funding of the research. Frankly, I think it's pretty evident that if this had been proposed in the first place by non-pro-lifers, before everyone got focused on the letter of the law in the case of Bush's policy, pro-lifers would have opposed it.
Just because the bad guys are Bush-bashers and will irrationally try to squelch anything that doesn't violate the letter of the law in Bush's policy, _we_ should not become so fixated on it from the other side that we _support_ any research that doesn't violate the letter of that law. Bush's original policy addressed what was being proposed at the time. I would like to think pro-lifers would have pressured him to ban funding for this sort of killing-encouraging research as well if it had been proposed at the time the policy was laid down. If we would not do that, we should have. But I think we're in danger of not seeing the big picture now if we focus too narrowly just on supporting anything that doesn't per se violate the present Bush funding policy as if that automatically makes it good or ethical or a "defeat" for the bad guys.
That's not what is happening here, Lydia.
I understand your points, and they are worth pondering. But it will do no good on the other side to just say no, no, no, if something worthy saying yes to comes along.
Thanks for thinking deeply and caring about these issues.
I used Lydia's line, today, at the Texas House State Affairs Committee special meeting at Houston. "Although it's possible they're ethical, 'Embryos don't die in car wrecks,' these embryos are created in and die in dangerous circumstances."
Thanks, Wesley and Lydia.
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