The stem cell argument isn’t exclusively a religious debate anymore. Right-to-life advocates aren’t the only ones who believe stem cell research could threaten moral integrity.
The Clinton administration approved regulations Wednesday that will allow researchers to use human embryonic stem cells in research projects. Anti-abortion supporters have long argued that using the cells is taking a human life. But now, even stem cell researchers themselves, and patients who could be cured as a result of stem cell studies, are opposing them.
Mary Jane Owen is one of them. She is blind, has partial hearing loss, and uses a wheelchair because of a spinal injury.
“I think that we’ve lost our sense of morality and wonder about human life,” said Owen, the executive director of the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities. “We’ve become so utilitarian that it apparently seems appropriate to researchers at the NIH that one future life can be sacrificed for somebody else’s benefit.”
Instead of sacrificing what Owen believes is a human life by using embryonic stem cells, she believes humans should learn to relax and even appreciate their vulnerabilities.
“I was a professor at San Francisco State, and I was a terrible intellectual snob,” Owen said. “I had no patience with people with any imperfections. I am a better person for having lost my sight, and I think I’m a better person from viewing the world from a wheelchair.
“I think that simply by being a successful, happy, fulfilled, productive person in this world, I confirm that we don’t need to be frantic in our effort to avoid the fact we’re vulnerable creatures. I’m willing to measure my happiness quotient against anybody in this world.”
Stem cells are the basis for every type of cell in the body, and many scientists say their powers of renewal are the only hope for people with certain debilitating diseases and injuries. Stem cells taken from embryos have been shown to be the most powerful kind. But increasing numbers of critics believe using them is unethical and immoral.
“I think that this technology is a propensity to refashion human biology in an unwise way,” said Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at the New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. “Right now this is just a step and it looks pretty benign, but potentially by using human embryos for research, it gets people used to the idea of producing human embryos for utilitarian purposes.”
The stem cell argument has often been presented as patients pitted against religious people, Newman said.
“But it’s not like that at all,” he said. “Just the way Bill Joy raised important questions in Wired (magazine) about new technologies I think this represents a way scientists are seeing the new reproductive technologies.”
Once people have a utilitarian view of human life, Newman said, it creates a terrain leading to genetic engineering of embryos first for therapy, then for creating superior humans. Newman said he’s not against the use of discarded embryonic materials, per se, but the precedent it could be setting worries him.
“I have no strong objection to that but I really do think we’re so close to the line now that we have to be very careful,” Newman said.
The use of federal funds for stem cell research has been banned in the United States for four years, but now it will be allowed under the new guidelines, which will be effective starting Friday.
Proponents, such as members of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, applaud the approved regulations. Superman star Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident, has been an outspoken proponent for federal stem cell research.
“While we prolong the stem-cell debate, millions continue to suffer. It’s time to harness the power of government and go forward,” Reeve said at a congressional hearing earlier this year.
Scientists have recently found evidence that they can make stem cells grow into specific tissue, including cells that produce insulin in the pancreas to treat diabetes, and nerve cells to repair severed spinal cords.
But in 1996, federal funding for the research was banned because of ethical and moral concerns in Congress.
The regulations will allow government researchers to use stem cells that are now discarded byproducts of in-vitro fertilization.
Advocates say that stem-cell research is more likely to be ethically performed under the auspices of government, rather than in the private sector, which some suggest would be dangerously unsupervised.
Several private firms, such as Geron in Menlo Park, California, and Ariad Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have continued to experiment with stem cells.
“We need the federal guidelines. Private research is going on in this area but … it’s done privately and chaotically,” said Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
If regulated by the government, Harkin added, the research could achieve “the fulfillment of the promise better than with no supervision and no ethical controls.”
Many of those who testified also said it’s more ethical for researchers to use the embryonic material to possibly improve the lives of sick people, rather than throw it in the trash.
But opponents like Owen advocate the use of adult stem cells, which can be derived from an adult’s marrow sample rather than from fetal tissue. Although research on the cells is still young, some studies have shown that they could also have the ability to grow into any type of cell.
“Adult stem cell research indicates that the retina and other parts of the eye can be rebuilt by stem cells from adults and that’s what I’m in favor of.”
