Stem-cell research must remain inside ethical boundaries

As we in the Catholic community observe October as Respect Life Month, one of the most controversial issues in the public forum is that of embryonic stem-cell research.

Three factors have coalesced to bring this issue to the fore.

First, advocates for those with diseases like cancer, Parkinson's, ALS and Alzheimer's have been making heart-wrenching, passionate pleas with legislators and the public for embryonic stem-cell research because of the promise of cures they believe such research will produce -- although no cures have been produced to date and even the most optimistic proponents admit that successful embryonic stem cell therapies are still years away.

Funding

Second, embryonic stem-cell research is being fueled in no small measure by state government officials who see such research as an economic boon for their jurisdictions.

This year, for example, the Catholic governor of Wisconsin told the state's bishops that, while he appreciated their moral objections to such research, "I feel the responsibility to promote vital research which will bring thousands of jobs to our state."

Similar arguments are being made by governmental leaders in Missouri, New Jersey and New York, who are afraid their states are falling behind California, where, in 2004, voters, prompted by a slick promotional plan, authorized state government to spend $3 billion on embryonic stem-cell research.

The ethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Institute notes that one of the reasons government is being urged to sponsor the research is because "venture capitalists have not found this research a promising market; the benefit too distant, too uncertain and too expensive to pursue, making for a bad cost-benefit ratio. That is why government, with deeper pockets, is the better place to look for money; taxpayers can more easily bear the economic cost of failure."

Science above all

Third, many researchers argue that good science demands that all possible paths to solving medical problems be explored, and that ethical, philosophical and theological constraints should not be a deterrent to the scientific method.

Thus, they assume the benefits of human embryonic stem-cell research are real, and that those benefits outweigh any scruples some may have about generating and destroying human embryos to alleviate painful and life-threatening disease.

Further, some scientists posit that embryonic experiments are needed because they contribute to a deeper understanding of every stage of human biology, which post-natal stem cells cannot yield.

Moral issue

The Church's position is that embryonic stem-cell research, conducted by harvesting living embryos, is morally unacceptable because it involves the destruction of the embryo.

In 2003, the Pontifical Academy for Life, in a paper titled "The Ethics of Biomedical Research -- A Christian Vision," stated that the embryo is a "human individual," deserving "the full respect as due every human person."

The document continues "human embryos are certainly not subjects who can give their personal consent to experimentation that exposes them to grave risk without the benefit of any directly therapeutic effect for themselves."

Tiny humans

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, states it is important that we understand the biology involved in embryonic stem-cell research because early embryos are remarkably unfamiliar to us.

They don't have faces or eyes to look into. They look nothing like what we expect when we imagine a human being. But the embryonic speck in the Petri dish (a small cluster of cells, sitting on the point of a sewing pin) is unlike any object in the world because it is the beginning of human life and must be accorded the same dignity as we would give any human being.

However, Father Pacholczyk says, "although it is a fundamental embryological truth that each of us was once an embryo, unfortunately advocates of embryonic stem-cell research are eager to portray human embryos as different from the rest of us, unable to make the grade and fair game for destruction at the hands of those who themselves are no longer embryos.

"Recognizing the inviolability of human embryos really doesn't depend on religion at all, but rather on an accurate understanding of where each of us originated and of the shared rights we all possess regardless of age, size or state of dependency."

Ethical issue

Since all current forms of embryonic stem-cell research involve destroying human embryos, such research is unethical because we can't destroy life in order to save it.

Hence, despite the potential medical, economic and scientific benefits such research may yield, the moral objection of the Church remains, as articulated clearly in the 1987 statement of the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, "Donum Vitae," and in the encyclical of Pope John Paul II, "The Gospel of Life."

Does that mean that the Church is opposed to all stem-cell research? Absolutely not! We can and do support many kinds of existing and forward-looking avenues of research, like umbilical cord and adult stem-cell research, which are morally acceptable and laudable.

Moral limits

We are not opposed to science and healing, but we must approach these efforts as people constrained by moral limits.

We must chart a path to the future that respects the power of science, but also ensures that this power is carefully ordered to serve and safeguard human life and human dignity.

Indeed, there is great promise in supporting ethically based stem-cell research. Currently, there are 65 different medical conditions (including Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, heart damage, corneal damage and sickle-cell anemia) being treated using umbilical blood and other ethical sources. But not a single condition has been treated employing cells from early embryos.

'Infuriating' hype

Dr. Colin McGuckin, a professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University in Great Britain, laments that "the hype surrounding embryonic stem cells is infuriating. An embryo has a tissue type, and there is a one in a million chance that its stem cells will be acceptable to any body other than its own. But there are 100 million children born each year and the blood from their umbilical cords can provide 100 million different tissue types. It wouldn't take as many as that to cover all the tissue variations we would need."

To build upon this "cord of hope," last May the Catholic Health Care Partnership of New Jersey and the New Jersey Catholic Conference announced that its state's 15 Catholic hospitals would encourage donations to two public blood banks. The cord-blood stem cells stored there have the potential for the treatment of all kinds of diseases.

I hope that our Respect Life Month observance will lead us in the Catholic community to advocate with our legislators, governmental leaders and fellow citizens for stem-cell cures that are well grounded scientifically and ethically.

(For more information on this issue, see the websites of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and New York State Catholic Conference: www.usccb.org and www.nyscatholic.org.)

(10/5/06)