May 15, 2005

 

Stem-Cell Guidelines Faulted

 

by PATRICK NOVECOSKY

Register Correspondent

 

WASHINGTON - New “eth­ics” guidelines on using human embryos for research are merely an attempt to desensitize Ameri­cans to experiments on unborn human life. So says a spokes­man for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The guidelines, issued April 26 by the National Academies — comprised of the National Acad­emy of Sciences, National Acad­emy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council — are designed to insti­tutionalize human embryonic stem-cell research, said Rich­ard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Confer­ence of Catholic Bishops.

“The entire project should be troubling to pro-life Americans,” he said. “This is just a way to facil­itate research in which embryos are destroyed and, in many cases, created solely for destruction. It’s trying to mainstream the destruc­tive research by wrapping it in review committees.”

The report doesn’t deal “with the central moral issue of embryonic stem-cell research. From a pro-life viewpoint, they’re just tightening the bolts on the Titanic,” Doer-flinger said.

The 142-page report offers “eth­ics guidelines” for scientists doing research using live human embryos and cloning using private funding. The Bush administration banned federal funding for all embryonic stem-cell lines created after Aug. 9, 2001.

The report offers more than 50 specific non-binding recommenda­tions. The report’s primary sugges­tion is that all institutions studying embryonic stem cells establish over­sight committees.

The guidelines call for barring payment to women for egg donation and obtaining consent from such donors. Only three types of research should be completely banned “at this time,” according to the report — research that allows an embryo to live past 14 days, that introduces human embryonic stem cells into nonhuman primates or that intro­duces any animal embryonic stem cells into a human embryo.

But the document allows researchers to introduce human stem cells into other mammals when “no other experiment can provide the information needed.”

The organization’s role, accord­ing to its website, is to bring “together committees of experts [to] ... address critical national issues and give advice to the federal government and the public.”

In this instance, however, it’s more accurate to say that the National Academies are try­ing to strong-arm government, the public and even the inter­national community, said Father Tad Pacholczyk (pronounced puh-HOLE-check), director of edu­cation at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

“There’s a sentiment in the international community that runs deep,” explained Father Pachol­czyk, a priest of the Fall River, Mass., diocese. “There is a deci­sion here to go forward and put the central ethical discussion to the side as if it were a conclusion that has already been reached. That’s a mistake. There’s a need to open an ethical discourse that will run deep and look at the goods that are at stake here.”

Richard Hynes, who co-chaired the committee that drafted the report, however, said the Acad­emies had already decided that it is ethical to proceed with embryonic stem-cell research.

The committee didn’t deal with whether or not such research is ethical, said Hynes, a cancer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But there were several ethicists on the committee. It was only half scien­tists. The other half were ethicists and lawyers and patient advocates. We didn’t discuss it. We scientists assumed the ethicists knew the definition of ethics.”

Researchers from the University of Nevada-Reno recently created 50 sheep, many of them possess­ing partially-human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. Such work is in full compliance with the National Academies’ guidelines.

The guidelines set some limits on adding human stem cells to animals, but Doerflinger warned it’s only a matter of time until the guidelines change to allow for fur­ther experimentation.

“They know it creeps people out,” he explained. “They’re will­ing to impose limits temporarily because they don’t see any great use for [such experiments] at the present time.”

Alfonso Gómez-Lobo, a mem­ber of the President’s Council on Bioethics, said that the council has given the president advice on clon­ing, but not stem-cell research.

“The Council is deeply divided on whether human embryos may be destroyed,” said Gómez-Lobo, who is also a member of the Pon­tifical Academy for Life. “I’m totally opposed to issuing guide­lines to destroy human embryos. The council has not entered into the fray.”

A human embryo is a unique boy or girl from conception to eight weeks, with DNA, life-expectancy — and the right to life.

In 1987, the Vati­can Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith taught that cloning was immoral.

“Attempts or hypotheses for obtaining a human being with­out any connection with sexual­ity through twin fission, clon­ing or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law,” the Congregation wrote in its instruction Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), “since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the con­jugal union” (No. 6).

In Congress, there are com­peting bills on the issue. Last month, senators reintroduced leg­islation that would authorize tax­payer funds for embryonic stem-cell research and promote human cloning. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced the legislation, along with Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Arlen Specter of Penn­sylvania. Their measure has never received a vote.

Legislative efforts to date, Father Pacholczyk said, have left a patchwork of regulations to guide scientists.

“You can’t use federal funds in a way that will directly destroy human embryos,” he said, “but if you have private money, you can. There is no law that regulates that. So, in that sense, at the federal level, there is a problem with a lack of legislative guidance. The same would hold for the two types of cloning. There is no law at the federal level that deals with this. So, as long as you have your own money, you can carry out cloning — even of human beings — and nobody will stop you.”

Last November, California vot­ers approved $3 billion in bonds for stem-cell research over the next 10 years. Other states are also encouraging research.

In the final analysis, it’s up to the American public and their leg­islators to set the standards for the research community, Doerflinger said.

“Science does not set policy or ethics,” he said. “That guid­ance has to come from elsewhere — not only the churches, but the people as a whole and our policy-makers in Congress. It’s not for scientists to say what scientists can do to human beings because that’s a much broader question.”

Patrick Novecosky writes

from Ann Arbor, Michigan