Sen. Kerry's Stem-Cell Fairy Tales
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Sen. Kerry's Stem-Cell Fairy Tales
| Sun, 08-22-2004 - 8:54pm |
Sen. Kerry's Stem-Cell Fairy Tales
The candidate's misleading claims have created confusion about the complex issue and Bush's prudent policy. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-cohen22aug22,1,687906.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
By Eric Cohen, Eric Cohen is editor and founder of the New Atlantis and a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
WASHINGTON — Along with the war on terror and the economy, stem-cell research has emerged as an issue in the presidential campaign. Sen. John F. Kerry has repeatedly attacked the Bush administration for "banning" the research, declaring that "here in America we don't sacrifice science for ideology." In promoting the promise of stem cells at the Democratic National Convention, Ron Reagan said we must choose "between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology." In response to such criticisms, First Lady Laura Bush accused Democrats of giving false hope to the sick and defended her husband, saying that the president is a great advocate of stem-cell research.
This back and forth has shed little light on the stem-cell question facing the country. Some level of confusion is probably unavoidable. The research is complicated biology, and stem cells come from a variety of sources: bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, aborted fetuses, human embryos, cloned human embryos. Adult and non-embryonic stem-cell research garners universal public support. Embryonic stem-cell research causes division because it involves the creation and destruction of human embryos at the earliest stages of human life.
Democrats are eager to discuss the issue, and Kerry's campaign rhetoric seems to have three objectives: first, to convince the nation that Bush has "enacted a far-reaching ban on stem-cell research." Second, to encourage Americans, especially sick ones, to believe that cures for everything from AIDS to Alzheimer's are just around the corner. Finally, to make ethical opposition to embryo research seem not just misguided but irrational — like opposing the Earth's orbit around the sun. All powerful claims; all false.
There is no ban on stem-cell research in America. When it comes to adult stem-cell research, Bush is a strong advocate, with the National Institutes of Health providing more than $180 million to researchers last year. When it comes to embryonic stem-cell research, there are no legal limits of any kind: New embryonic stem-cell institutes are springing up at major universities across the country; Californians will vote in November on a $3-billion bond initiative to fund embryo research; scientists at Harvard recently created 17 new embryonic stem-cell lines, and scientists in Chicago produced 50 more. To say repeatedly, as Kerry has, that Bush has "shut down" stem-cell research is absurd.
A great deal of embryonic stem-cell research is ineligible for public funding. A law, passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed annually, prohibits federal funding for research involving the destruction of human embryos. In 2001, Bush reviewed the NIH guidelines implementing the law and decided to authorize funding for research on existing embryonic stem-cell lines in which the human embryos in question had already been destroyed.
There are 22 lines currently eligible for federal funding, with more on the way. Nearly 500 shipments had been made to scientists, and the NIH spent $25 million on this kind of research last year.
Critics of Bush's policy complain that there are not enough usable cell lines and that the existing lines are not as good as newer ones. But their criticism fails to see the policy's larger aim: to promote basic research without creating a public incentive for further human embryo destruction and without forcing all citizens to pay for an activity that many believe is morally wrong. The president's policy neither bans all embryo research nor funds all embryo research. It offers a prudent middle course.
The second Kerry claim — that stem-cell inspired treatments for many dreaded diseases are imminent — is even more irresponsible. In June, the Washington Post published a story, quoting many leading scientists in the field, that said stem-cell research was unlikely to lead to a cure for Alzheimer's. When asked why Alzheimer's continues to be a favorite of stem-cell research advocates, NIH scientist Ron McKay replied: "People need a fairy tale." Shortly after the death of President Reagan, who suffered from the disease, Kerry devoted one of the Democrats' weekly radio addresses to this fairy tale, declaring that "stem-cell research has brought us closer to finding ways to treat Alzheimer's."
Stem-cell research — and perhaps embryonic stem-cell research alone — has the potential to produce a cure for or ameliorate certain terrible diseases, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes being the most promising. But the outcomes of this research are currently wholly speculative. Cures are not, as Kerry repeatedly claims, "at our fingertips."
The hard question for the nation is whether the search for cures justifies a national project of human embryo destruction. But Kerry speaks as if there is no ethical dilemma at all; at most, he professes his "faith" that the ethical issues will be "resolved." He offers no argument for why it is ethically permissible to destroy human embryos and no details about which limits, if any, scientists should observe.
This brings us to the heart of the matter — the human embryo. These "clumps of cells" and the powers of development that make them useful to researchers are also reasons to accord them profound respect. These embryos are microscopic — but size should not determine their fate. They lack higher consciousness, but consciousness should not be the exclusive determinant of humanness; otherwise, we'd treat whole classes of living people as less than human.
Many embryos are left over in fertility clinics — but the idea that they are "going to die anyway" is not a convincing ethical argument for using them in research; otherwise, why not routinely use death row inmates as sources of organs? Frozen embryos are going to die because we created and then abandoned them. And despite the easy temptation to equate frozen embryos to corpses, there is a decisive difference between the two: The former are not yet mature; the latter are no longer living.
Good people will draw different ethical or political lines in the debate over stem-cell research. But everyone should approach the question with humility and sobriety, lest we undermine the dignity of human life in the noble effort to save it. So far, the Kerry campaign has failed this test.
This back and forth has shed little light on the stem-cell question facing the country. Some level of confusion is probably unavoidable. The research is complicated biology, and stem cells come from a variety of sources: bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, aborted fetuses, human embryos, cloned human embryos. Adult and non-embryonic stem-cell research garners universal public support. Embryonic stem-cell research causes division because it involves the creation and destruction of human embryos at the earliest stages of human life.
Democrats are eager to discuss the issue, and Kerry's campaign rhetoric seems to have three objectives: first, to convince the nation that Bush has "enacted a far-reaching ban on stem-cell research." Second, to encourage Americans, especially sick ones, to believe that cures for everything from AIDS to Alzheimer's are just around the corner. Finally, to make ethical opposition to embryo research seem not just misguided but irrational — like opposing the Earth's orbit around the sun. All powerful claims; all false.
There is no ban on stem-cell research in America. When it comes to adult stem-cell research, Bush is a strong advocate, with the National Institutes of Health providing more than $180 million to researchers last year. When it comes to embryonic stem-cell research, there are no legal limits of any kind: New embryonic stem-cell institutes are springing up at major universities across the country; Californians will vote in November on a $3-billion bond initiative to fund embryo research; scientists at Harvard recently created 17 new embryonic stem-cell lines, and scientists in Chicago produced 50 more. To say repeatedly, as Kerry has, that Bush has "shut down" stem-cell research is absurd.
A great deal of embryonic stem-cell research is ineligible for public funding. A law, passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed annually, prohibits federal funding for research involving the destruction of human embryos. In 2001, Bush reviewed the NIH guidelines implementing the law and decided to authorize funding for research on existing embryonic stem-cell lines in which the human embryos in question had already been destroyed.
There are 22 lines currently eligible for federal funding, with more on the way. Nearly 500 shipments had been made to scientists, and the NIH spent $25 million on this kind of research last year.
Critics of Bush's policy complain that there are not enough usable cell lines and that the existing lines are not as good as newer ones. But their criticism fails to see the policy's larger aim: to promote basic research without creating a public incentive for further human embryo destruction and without forcing all citizens to pay for an activity that many believe is morally wrong. The president's policy neither bans all embryo research nor funds all embryo research. It offers a prudent middle course.
The second Kerry claim — that stem-cell inspired treatments for many dreaded diseases are imminent — is even more irresponsible. In June, the Washington Post published a story, quoting many leading scientists in the field, that said stem-cell research was unlikely to lead to a cure for Alzheimer's. When asked why Alzheimer's continues to be a favorite of stem-cell research advocates, NIH scientist Ron McKay replied: "People need a fairy tale." Shortly after the death of President Reagan, who suffered from the disease, Kerry devoted one of the Democrats' weekly radio addresses to this fairy tale, declaring that "stem-cell research has brought us closer to finding ways to treat Alzheimer's."
Stem-cell research — and perhaps embryonic stem-cell research alone — has the potential to produce a cure for or ameliorate certain terrible diseases, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes being the most promising. But the outcomes of this research are currently wholly speculative. Cures are not, as Kerry repeatedly claims, "at our fingertips."
The hard question for the nation is whether the search for cures justifies a national project of human embryo destruction. But Kerry speaks as if there is no ethical dilemma at all; at most, he professes his "faith" that the ethical issues will be "resolved." He offers no argument for why it is ethically permissible to destroy human embryos and no details about which limits, if any, scientists should observe.
This brings us to the heart of the matter — the human embryo. These "clumps of cells" and the powers of development that make them useful to researchers are also reasons to accord them profound respect. These embryos are microscopic — but size should not determine their fate. They lack higher consciousness, but consciousness should not be the exclusive determinant of humanness; otherwise, we'd treat whole classes of living people as less than human.
Many embryos are left over in fertility clinics — but the idea that they are "going to die anyway" is not a convincing ethical argument for using them in research; otherwise, why not routinely use death row inmates as sources of organs? Frozen embryos are going to die because we created and then abandoned them. And despite the easy temptation to equate frozen embryos to corpses, there is a decisive difference between the two: The former are not yet mature; the latter are no longer living.
Good people will draw different ethical or political lines in the debate over stem-cell research. But everyone should approach the question with humility and sobriety, lest we undermine the dignity of human life in the noble effort to save it. So far, the Kerry campaign has failed this test.
Renee ~~~

NEW STEM-CELL POLL
http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_08_22_corner-archive.asp#038342
The Catholic bishops have commissioned a poll of their own. The following question was asked of 1,001 adults: "Stem cells are the basic cells from which all of a person's tissues and organs develop. Congress is considering the question of federal funding for experiments using stem cells from human embryos. The live embryos would be destroyed in their first week of development to obtain these cells. Do you support or oppose using your federal tax dollars for such experiments?" The result: 46.9 percent opposed the subsidy, and 43.3 percent supported it.
They were also asked this question: "Stem cells for research can be obtained by destroying human embryos. They can also be obtained from adults, from placentas left over from live births, and in other ways that do no harm to the donor. Scientists disagree on which source may end up being most successful in treating diseases. How would you prefer your tax dollars to be used this year for stem cell research?" Only 23.0 percent said that all methods should be used, "including those that require destroying human embryos, to see which will be most successful." In contrast, 61.4 percent wanted to pursue only the non-embryonic approaches.
Other questions found strong (82.1 percent) opposition to allowing cloning for infertile couples to have children, and nearly as strong opposition (79.8 percent) to the use of "human cloning to to create a supply of human embryos to be destroyed in medical research."
The bishops' poll question is loaded--although no more so than many of the other polls on the subject. What it emonstrates is that the public's answer to these questions depends strongly on the wording. When the possible benefits of embryo research for sick people are not mentioned, the fact that the research "destroy" "live" embryos is mentioned, and "your federal tax dollars" are discussed, the public opposes it. (It could have been more loaded: An even larger number would probably have taken the bishops' side if they had asked about research that "kills" rather than just "destroys" human embryos.)
The news for opponents of the subsidies is not all good. When the bishops asked an almost identical question in 2001, 69.9 percent of the public opposed taxpayer funding for the research. The opponents have lost a lot of ground in these three years.
This poll is a very useful corrective to the steady barrage of stacked polls we've seen from the other side. Most people do not have strong and firmly held views on these questions, which is why the choice of poll wording has such a large effect. And the issue can be framed in ways that win majority support for pro-lifers.
AND ANOTHER ONE
http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_08_22_corner-archive.asp#038343
Wilson Research Strategies did a poll for the National Right to Life Committee--it was also released today. This one found 53 percent opposition to "using tax dollars to pay for the kind of stem cell research that requires the killing of embryos," compared to 38 percent support. Taxpayer funding of research "that does not require the killing of human embryos" gets 74 percent support. Sixty-nine percent of respondents wanted to ban all human cloning, while 24 percent said that "cloning to create human embryos for stem cell research which would kill them should be allowed and only cloning for reproduction should be banned." NRLC official Darla St. Martin said in the press release, "When people understand that President Bush's position is to oppose 'using tax dollars to pay for the kind of stem cell research that requires the killing of human embryos,' a majority agree with him."
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~