STEM CELL RESEARCH: WHERE DO WE STAND?
Bishop Paul S. Coakley
With the recent announcement of plans to create a “biotechnology corridor” between Columbia, Missouri and Manhattan, Kansas the stage is being set for a massive political and ethical debate. State and local governments, universities and biotechnology companies see a huge economic opportunity in this emerging area of research and experimentation. One of the key issues of this debate will be the question of embryonic stem cell research.
What does all of this mean? In the rapidly developing and highly complex field of biotechnology the average non-specialist is often left scratching his or her head in befuddlement. Understandably, I am often asked about the Church’s position on stem cell research. Now is an opportune time to lay out a few simple points about this critical ethical issue.
First, what are stem cells? Stem cells are relatively unspecialized cells that can divide and/or be manipulated in order to produce cells with more specialized functions. Because stem cells can be coaxed into developing in various directions medical science has great hopes that these can be used to create effective therapies and cure many diseases. In fact, adult stem cells have already been used to save lives and help treat people with leukemia, Parkinson’s disease, sickle-cell anemia and many other conditions.
The most promising stem cell research uses cells obtained from adult tissue, such as bone marrow, and the umbilical cords of newborns. Research using these stem cells poses no moral problem at all and has produced impressive results.
Catholic moral teaching is not opposed to this kind of stem cell research. The Church applauds the efforts of this sort of ethically responsible science. The problem arises with embryonic stem cell research. This raises very grave moral problems indeed.
Embryonic stem cell research harvests stem cells by killing a living human embryo. The Church opposes the direct killing of any innocent human life for any purpose whatever, including research. It does not matter how noble the purpose may be. We can never use an evil means (killing an innocent human being) to obtain a good end (a cure for disease). We can never accept reducing a human person to a mere instrument for experimentation. Persons cannot be “used”. It is an affront to human dignity.
Where do embryonic stem cells come from? They can come from in vitro fertilization. That is, they may be harvested from the living embryos that have been frozen and abandoned as a result of the efforts to conceive a child outside of the womb (which raises many other moral problems). Embryonic stem cells can also be harvested through a highly technical procedure known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), otherwise known as cloning. Cloning is gaining a wider acceptance within the biotechnology industry, not yet as a way to bring to birth a cloned human being, but as the means to produce human embryos for stem cell experimentation. Still, it is cloning and the first step on a very slippery slope.
There are other concerns. Embryonic stem cell research, in spite of the fanfare surrounding it, does not seem to hold as much promise as research using adult stem cells or stem cells obtained from umbilical cords. Embryonic stem cells have never been used to treat a single human patient and research suggests that these stem cells are too unstable to lead to any useful treatment any time soon. The fact is, however, that there is money to be made in this new field. The race to patent the “products” of human embryonic stem cell research will make this a highly lucrative field. This too, has totally unacceptable ethical implications.
The potential economic advantages which embryonic stem cell research offers to for-profit biotechnology businesses is unfortunately diverting attention and resources away from the more promising progress already within reach through continued investment in adult stem cell research.
Before we allow ourselves to be swept up by the rhetoric about economic advantages and the potential medical advances associated with promotion of the “biotechnology corridor” now is the time to carefully study the issues. This is the emerging life issue of our times.