Response to Stem Cell Research

Rob, I am shocked, shocked, that the NYT neglected to give a complete and fair presentation the richness of the Church’s position on its concerns about the mechanization of reproduction in its story on harvesting embryonic stem cells.  Next thing you know, there will be gambling going on in the back rooms at the NYT.

It’s easy to see where the Advanced Cell Technology researchers are going with this argument, though, and it is scary.  They’re trying to characterize the harvesting of embryonic stem cells, without destroying the embryo, as essentially the same as donating blood.  At a very early stage in embryonic development, when the embryo is two days old and consists of 8 cells, you can just snip off one of those cells and cultivate stem cells from that cell.  The other 7 cells can be implanted in mother’s womb and grow into a healthy baby.   The harvested embryonic stem cells can then be cultivated and used to develop cures for Alzheimer’s, cancer, obesity, near-sightedness, arrogance, etc., etc.   How could anyone possibly object to such a self-less, harmless little procedure that will facilitate miraculous scientific advances?

I know there are other MOJ-ers who can (and have already) articulate much more sophisticated arguments about stem cell research than I, but here are two counterarguments that leap to my mind.

First, even on their terms (ie, this is just the same as donating blood -- no harm, no foul to the developing embryo), this procedure ought to be at least subject to the same kinds of issues about safety and informed consent that apply to blood donation or organ donation.  With respect to safety, the NYT article itself hedges about whether harvesting the one cell is safe for the embryo.  It says:  “Many such embryos have grown into apparently healthy babies over the 10 years or so the diagnostic tests have been used.”  Hardly sounds like an utterly risk-free procedure.  With respect to informed consent, I really don’t know much about this areas of law, especially as applied to parents giving consent for their children, but there must be some limits to a person’s ability to consent to such procedures on behalf of others.  It would be interesting to hear more about how that analysis would apply to this situation. 

Here in the Twin Cities, our local science museum just extended its run of the Body Worlds exhibit, which local Star Tribune described as an “The exhibit of skinless cadavers frozen in plastinated poses [that] has drawn more than 433,000 visitors, already making it the most popular exhibit in the museum's history.”  Using the bodies of people who have already died in exhibits like this seems to raise all sorts of complicated ethical issues involving consent. At the very least, using the cells of these embryos ought to be subject to the same ethical screens.

Second, the argument this method “would seem to remove the principal objection to” embryonic stem cell research because the embryos can be implanted after the cell is harvested is simply absurd. Isn’t the principal objection to embryonic stem cell research concern about the destruction of embryos involved?  If the researchers at Advanced Cell Technology were willing to limit themselves to harvesting their cells from embryos whose parents were committed to implantation after harvesting, they might have a valid argument.  But that obviously not the kind of situation in which this technique would be used.  The NYT article makes that clear in its description of the technique:  “The embryo, now with seven cells, can be implanted in the woman if no defect is found.”   This new technique for harvesting embryonic stem cells is an application of the preimplantation genetic diagnosis technique I’ve discussed elsewhere.  It’s used to weed out embryos with genetic defects, precisely so they will NOT be implanted. 

Significantly, the NYT article cites Dr. Irving Weissman, a stem cell expert at Stanford, for the point that “the new method, if confined to blastomeres derived from preimplantation genetic testing, would not provide a highly desired type of cell, those derived from patients with a specific disease.  Many scientists have come to regard this use of the cells, to explore the basic mechanisms of the disease, as more likely to provide new therapies than direct use of the cells themselves.”  So it appears much of the scientific value of stem cell research comes from cells that have the disease or defects that the scientists are hoping to cure.  Presumably, the researchers at Advanced Cell Technology share those interests.  So now they are proposing to use preimplantation genetic testing to identify embryos with those diseases and conditions that they want to study and cure, to harvest one cell from those embryos to use for their research, and assure us that this is O.K. because these embryos will all find loving homes in the wombs of the mothers engaging in this kind of testing???????  I’m sure there must be a more sophisticated legal way to articulate my reaction, and maybe I’ll work that out after I finish getting ready for all the students coming back on Monday, but for now all I can say is … give me a break!!!

Lisa