Expert: Mary Gordon - 11/19/2004

Question
Hi Mary, I'm here to ask you what your thoughts are on the subject of stem cell research. This is a very  important topic as it deals with possible help in the field of research for Alzheimer's disease and other diseases. I was wondering if you'd care to comment on the current debate that exists in America, and whether or not the restrictions that President Bush has put on possible research should be lifted. If not, why do you feel so many Americans are so reluctant to allow for full research?

Answer
I'm a Canadian, and like many people in countries other than the US, I confess to finding some of this one baffling. What is the most confusing to me is the apparent violation of the basic principal of separation of church and state, and the suppression of genuine debate that appears to have happened in the US.  

I know that some fundamentalist religious groups and Catholics take the public stance that the use of ANY embryonic cell lines is a form of abortion, but fertility clinics routinely destroy thousands of embryos and have not been similarly protested against, which seems a bit contradictory to me. Embryos used for stem cell research would normally be discarded or kept frozen indefinitely if not used in research. There are some interesting religious splits on the issue - many Jewish groups are supportive of embryonic research, as they do not view an early stage embryo as a human being. Many Humanists, Unitarian Universalists, and many Muslim clerics have also come out in favor of stem cell research.

The Bush administration's decision from 2001 does not prohibit private embryonic stem cell research, but so far most pharmaceutical/ biotechnology firms are not too interested because therapies based on cells, which might have to be tailored to each patient would be less profitable one-size-fits-all drugs. As you probably know, in 2002 President Bush appointed a council on bioethics...and then fired and replaced two of the members who were pro-research (William May and Elizabeth Blackburn)....which made it look like he was stacking the deck to get a particular bias among the council members, rather than embracing genuine debate.

As you are likely aware, a few weeks ago, California passed a ballot initiative to create a $3 billion state taxpayer-funded institute for embryonic stem cell research. This institute is claimed to be the world's largest single backer of research in stem cells and is expected to draw many talented scientists to the state. Its hard to know what will happen next, but other US states may follow with similar propositions, creating a state-by-state approach that sidesteps the Bush administration's federal funding restrictions.

My take on this is very personal. Nothing in life is every totally black and white, and sometimes great good comes out of terrible situations (think how many people volunteer for medical research knowing that they will not save themselves, but help others). I've watched loved ones suffer terribly and die from illnesses that couldn't be helped. I cannot personally understand how the "rights" of a couple of cells in a petrie dish could be put before the rights of suffering people and their families, when science might have in its power the ability to find ways to help them. I suspect that what will happen is that the technology will swarm past this  particular roadblock. Not only are there many, many other sources of stem cells (and more being found all the time), but other countries are doing research - so in time, the partial ban will be only a footnote in history. Even now, the US ban is becoming irrelavent (its like holding back a tidal wave with a row of sandbags).

Genetic research really is a Pandora's box - now that its open, we can't shove the contents back in the box and close the lid  - I genuinely believe its like the line from Shakespeare that says "what love can do, that dares love attempt". In other words, we can't stop it even if we WANT to stop it. If its possible to be done, someone, somewhere is going to do it, particularly since the world is full of illness and suffering, and thus many researchers are motivated by reasons other than personal gain.

It is a dilemna for our moral institutions, given that science is breaking ground faster than we can ponder and adapt - and clearly, some of the old rules require more black and white than genetic research can dish out.  Even now, we can grow long living cell lines from most kinds of tissue, so there are petrie dishes all over the place full of human tissues growing indefinately in a lab, quite apart from human beings.  When the day comes when we can clone a person from any single cell, do we start to call every tissue culture or nail clipping a potential human being to be defended to the detriment of the actual human beings?

We have a hard time with death, never mind that life can come out of death, or considering that the here and now trumps the maybe might be.

I don't have a good answer for you - just lots of musing interspersed with ranting!

Mary G.
Toronto