What a crazy, mixed-up world we seem to live in at times. In March, President Barack Obama lifted by executive decree a large number of the restrictions on funding embryonic stem cell research that had been in place since the time of his predecessor. He then instructed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to prepare guidelines for the allocation of this funding. When the NIH requested public suggestions, they received 49,000 comments, 30,000 of which were against such research itself! (These 30,000 comments were discarded.)
On July 7, the guidelines were published. They indicate that “donated excess embryos” may be used (and destroyed), i.e. embryos created originally for reproductive purposes but which are now “unneeded” or “unwanted.” And cell lines previously produced or that have been produced in a foreign country are also eligible for American taxpayer’s money.
Then General Electric Corporation announced that it would begin using embryonic stem cells for the purpose of testing the toxic effects of drug treatments. Company officials noted that such cells, taken from human embryos would probably soon replace the use of lab rats!
Ironically the announcement statement claimed ethical principles in their project: “We take very seriously the ethical issues associated with research using stem cells derived from embryonic or fetal tissue. We conduct our research in an ethically and scientifically responsible manner.”
No they don’t. Their arguments for using embryonic cells are simply utilitarian — the end justifies the means. Spokespersons from the Geron Corporation, which is supplying the embryonic cells, explained that three-quarters of toxicity problems are not detected until at least the preclinical stage and “this significantly increases the cost of developing new drugs. Earlier detection (through the use of embryonic cells) could reduce overall drug development costs.” So human life is destroyed to save money! (The company representatives did note that using embryo cells might also prevent some harmful human patient exposure in clinical trials. But this end does not justify the killing of embryos). So here you have another attack on primordial human life, in the name of ethical responsibility and justified by cost factors.
Another sign of the times is that in mid-June the president dissolved the “U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics,” an advisory group of philosophers and scientists to discuss medical ethical issues and to advise the President and Congress on them. The group was set up in 2001 by George W. Bush. Dr. Leon Kass of the University of Chicago was the council’s first chairman. He was opposed to any human cloning and to embryonic stem cell research. Then in 2005, Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., of Georgetown University, a fine Catholic researcher and administrator, succeeded Kass. Pellegrino had at one time been president of Catholic University of America and served as senior ethicist at Georgetown. I asked myself several times in recent months: “I wonder how long Dr. Pellegrino and the council will last?” In March 2009, Pellegrino wrote an article in which he professed; “Ethically I cannot support any policy permitting deliberate production and/or destruction of a human fetus or embryo.” That was the death knell for the council.
But not all is bad news. In the first week in July the Louisiana legislature voted on the “Healthcare Workers’ Conscience Act,” a piece of legislation which stated that medical practitioners (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, et al) could opt out of medical procedures which they personally opposed, such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, distribution of abortifacient drugs (e.g. the “morning after pill”), euthanasia and assisted-suicide. The bill was introduced as the result of the case of a nurse, in practice for 23 years, who informed the administrators of her hospital that her religious beliefs did not allow her to hand out the “morning after” pill. She was fired from her full-time job, demoted to half-time with significant reduction in wages, benefits and status. When the Louisiana courts denied her reinstatement, friends introduced the “Conscience Act,” which was bitterly opposed by ACLU and Planned Parenthood. But the Act passed in the Louisiana Senate by a vote of 31-2 and in the House, by a vote of 88-12! On July 12, Governor Bobby Jindal signed it into law. Some politicians get things right.
Father John A. Leies, SM, STD, is president emeritus of St. Mary’s University and was formerly head of the Theology Department there.