Embryonic Stem Cell Debate and Ethics

The Embryonic Stem Cell Debate and Ethics

By Daniel Thetford

The debate over the use of stem cells has been raging for years now. At the forefront of human technological ability, the harvesting and utilization of embryonic cells sparks great passion on both sides of the issue. Those against it often claim that it is tantamount to murder. Those supporting it claim that it is a virtual fountain of life-saving medical science. The technology has been under development for roughly forty years now—mostly with little attention. It was not until 1998 when University of Wisconsin- Madison Professor James Thompson first harvested and grew cells from spare embryos that this new research was cast into the spotlight. Since then, the controversy over the issue has continued to grow—it has affected households, classrooms, news stations, and the floors of Congress and the Oval Office. The main cause of conflict—the soul of this controversy—is the very idea of the soul itself. In fact, it is a possibility that the most promising technology in our history may never come to fruition due to our religious notions. Hopefully, this is not the case. Stem cell research is the most important technology of our time, and it should be aggressively pursued.
To grasp the significance of this debate, it is necessary to understand stem cells and their potential technologies. Approximately three days after fertilization, the new cells have grown into what is called a blastocyst. A blastocyst is simply a clump of about 150 undifferentiated cells. To be undifferentiated means that a cell has no specific function other than that of potentially developing into a more specialized kind of cell—a differentiated cell. In fact, according to www.religioustolerance.org, it has been shown that embryonic stem cells are able to transform into nearly all of the 220 different types of cells in the human body. For example, given the right conditions, stem cells can develop into brain, heart, blood, liver, kidney, and skin cells. Herein lays the potential of this research.
Embryonic stem cells have the promise of offering therapeutic breakthroughs for almost every illness and injury process that human beings suffer. This research could be the end of illnesses such as Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease. Stem cells can be directed to produce insulin, which could develop into a possible cure for diabetes. Furthermore, stem cells can be used to grow new organs. According to www.stemcellresearch.org, a professor at Florida State University is currently growing bone in a lab, which may one day offer a treatment for osteoporosis. Burn victims may be saved from grafting their own skin into their wounds. It may soon be possible to create fully functioning hearts and kidneys. Imagine transplant patients never having to be placed on donor waiting lists, resigned to a slow death because there are no available organs for transplant. There are virtually endless possibilities in this line of research. We do know that stem cells can take us very far in our medical technology, but, in fact, we do not yet know how far. It seems that at every turn, there is a road block put up, hindering the advancement of this research.
On June 7th, 2007, the House of Representatives gave final Congressional approval to legislation intended to ease restrictions on federally funding stem cell research. For the first time, both Democrats and Republicans formed a coalition to send federal money to this research, with an overwhelming vote of 247 to 176—as reported on www.cnn.com. The only problem: the President’s stubborn reluctance to allow this bill to pass. His first veto, Mr. Bush prevented the passing of a similar bill in July 2006. He has continually vowed to do the same if the bill comes to his desk again, stating in press release published on www.whitehouse.gov, “If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would for the first time in our history be compelled to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos. Crossing that line would be a grave mistake.” President Bush has expressed that he is disappointed that the leadership of Congress has attempted to “recycle” a bill that would “overturn our country’s carefully balanced policy on embryonic stem cell research.” Allow me to clarify. In 2001, President Bush authorized the continuance of research utilizing 72 lines of stem cells already in existence, while simultaneously preventing any further Federal funding. To his credit, though, $90 million of federal money was provided for the investigation of these existing cells. However, by 2003, most of these lines had become useless, and by mid-2006, only 22 remained. Many of these were of limited usefulness due to DNA damage. Once these are gone, federally funded research will end. So, it seems that President Bush’s “carefully balanced policy” represents just enough research to allow us but a glimpse of the potential found in embryonic stem cells. This cut-short policy will later be further explained.
In fairness, the policy of the White House is not such that would blindly or maliciously prevent the researching of stem cells. In fact, the President has little qualm with stem cell research—that is, until they are derived from human embryos. Mr. Bush fully supports the investigation of adult stem cells. It is possible to remove dormant stem cells from adult tissue. These cells lay in waiting until they are needed to create a differentiated cell in the body. While there is some promise in this research, and while it should be fully explored, it does have its problems. First, adult stem cells are very difficult to extract from adult tissue, and they are very limited in quantity. Furthermore, these stem cells are not of the same usefulness as those taken from an embryo. The scope of differentiation of adult stem cells is limited to only a handful of the 220 existing types of human cells. While they have their potential, adult stem cells just do not have the same breadth of promise that embryonic stem cells do. They do not hold the same keys to the large-scale alleviation of suffering found in embryonic stem cell research.
As discussed, the President’s policy is rather shortcoming. The circumstances of his decision serve to clarify his stance, however. According to a poll published on www.abcnews.com, we are now at a point where approximately two thirds of American citizens support the harvesting of human embryos to facilitate stem cell research. We are at a point where approximately two thirds of our Congress supports the same. We are also at a point where the Republican Party, to which President Bush belongs, and who are the primary opponents of embryo utilization, are becoming increasingly unpopular—largely due to public disapproval of the President’s foreign policy decisions. Furthermore, Mr. Bush is in his second term—he will have no more after his current. From simple demographic trends, the President knows that regardless of his policy, this research will be approved sooner or later. It seems, though, that Mr. Bush would prefer to see it approved later. Why? Why is the President delaying the inevitable? Why is he withholding this promising line of research that the majority of the country approves of? The answer is appallingly simplistic: Mr. Bush does not want the blood of what he perceives as children to be on his hands. Mr. Bush believes that these blastocysts have souls.
The soul is the true root of all controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell research. Once this notion is introduced into the debate, camps are divided along clear moral and ethical lines. On Mr. Bush’s side are those who believe that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception, making these blastocysts human beings. As human beings, they should be afforded the same levels of respect and dignity as you and me. They are people, and should be treated as such. Furthermore, they have been given the gift of life from God, and white-coated scientists in laboratories are not morally qualified judges of acceptable circumstances for ending life. The President and those who share his view, however, with Judeo-Christian text in hand, are morally qualified judges, apparently. Their ruling: to err on the side of Iron Age caution; to protect the soul at all cost, in accordance with the ideas and philosophies of men who lived thousands of years ago.
Without delving too deep into religion, it is necessary here to discuss the idea of the soul. What is a soul? This is a question that has remained throughout recorded history. The problem, however, is that it has never been finally answered. In fact, it is possible for every individual to have their own notion of what a soul is, as no person, at any time, in any place has been able to definitively describe the soul. No person has ever been able to isolate and study the soul. I do not claim to be able to either. I can, however, describe what the soul is not. The soul is not tangible. It is not a thing that we can hold in our hand, or see beneath a microscope. It is not biology, it is theology. The soul is not physical, it is metaphysical. While I realize that belief in the soul is a matter of faith and not science, there are some important observations that hold weight on this notion. For instance, one zygote will sometimes split into two, creating what we know as identical twins. It is also common that two zygotes (fraternal twins) will merge into one. This is called a chimera. Once the fusion has occurred, there is no way of telling a chimera apart from the individual zygote that has always been so. The new zygote will develop into a completely normal, healthy person. You or I could be one without knowing it. The question that arises here is this: what becomes of the extra soul? Where does it go? Is it possible for one individual to contain two souls? Is it possible that identical twins each contain only half of the original soul? The simple mathematics of souls does not add up, and theologians are struggling to rationalize these phenomena right now.
So, from the idea of the soul occurring within the blastocyst comes the implication that murder is being committed during the stem cell extraction process. It is true that it is not currently possible to remove these cells without killing the embryo, and so this presents the moral dilemma in the research. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that those most adamantly opposed to embryonic stem cell research also represent the majority of the pro-life demographic. The connection is very easily drawn between destroying blastocysts in a Petri dish and the commission of murder that abortion is often perceived as. However, as is often the case with, primarily, the zealously religious, the details of human biology are given just as little credence as the reality of human suffering. For instance, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, it is estimated that 50 percent of all human pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion, usually without a woman even realizing that she was pregnant. Furthermore, 20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. As Sam Harris states in his 2006 book, Letter to a Christian Nation, “there is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: If God exists, He is the most prolific abortionist of all.”
So, here, we are introduced to the distinct ethical aspects of embryonic stem cell research. What should we be doing, and why? It is clear the preference of those who give primary consideration to the soul. To this camp, we should not be killing human embryos in the name of science. However, at this point, it is completely necessary to examine the reasons for their opinions. Their reasons lie in the realm of that which is not verifiable. They base their arguments off of a version of reality which is extremely debatable. But do their notions actually represent a state of how the world really is? It is possible that they do, though in truth, there is no way of telling—not at present, anyway. However, the day that Christianity, for instance, is proven to be true—the day that we know, with all certainty, that this version of reality is actual reality—on that day, it will no longer be referred to as the religion of Christianity. It will thenceforth be known as the science of Christianity. Whichever religion, it would not take much more than a few minutes of verifiable acts of Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, or Vishnu—there for all to see. However, until that day arrives, we simply cannot afford to confuse ethics with the hazy metaphysics of religious dogma.
This entire debate can be boiled down to two things: what we know, and what we do not know. We know that there is widespread, health-related suffering in the world. We know that embryonic stem cell research can alleviate much of this suffering. We do not know, however, if a god or a soul exists. Presuming that a god does exist, we still do not know what (or even if) it thinks about this research. From what we know and what we do not know, the only ethical stance to take is to err on the side of true caution. We must pursue what we know, not what some of us think may be real, but can never verify. Ethics, then (specifically, bioethics) should only be equated here with the alleviation of suffering. That which alleviates the most suffering is the most ethical. Does the indefinable concept of the soul trump the needs of an old man suffering from Parkinson’s Disease? Does it take precedence over the mental and physical deterioration of Alzheimer’s patients? The three-day old blastocyst contains 150 cells—there is no brain, and there are no neurons. By comparison, the brain of a fly contains more than 100,000 cells. The ethical truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst supersedes the interests of a little boy with a spinal cord injury, or a little girl with burns over 75 percent of her body, has had his ethical sense blinded by religion.
It is often observed that just because we can do something in science does not mean that we should. While this notion does hold water, it is completely inapplicable here. The answer to this is that, yes, we absolutely should be conducting embryonic stem cell research. Furthermore, federal funding (the lifeblood of any scientific research) should be poured into it. This is the most promising line of research since the discovery of antibiotics; the benefits of these cells are inescapable. There is absolutely no suffering involved in the process, other than that which is alleviated by the subsequent medical technologies. And the scale of this alleviated suffering will be massive. This is longer life and this is better life, and we have it at our tangible disposal! We simply cannot afford to allow these stem cells to whither away in the often stagnant holding cell of religion’s custody. To do so would be an ethical catastrophe. And so the answer to those who question whether or not this research is tantamount to the crime of killing another human being is this: the killing of this research would be tantamount to a crime against humanity as a whole.

Works Cited
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