WSJ piece on stem cell research / ethics / abortion foes, etc.
June 21, 1999
Research Supporters, Abortion Foes
Clash Over Research on Stem Cells
By LAURIE MCGINLEY and ANNE FAWCETT
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Charles Grassley often touts the need for more
research into diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and osteoporosis. "I
hope research will lead to a day when no one has to live with a debilitating
condition," he says.
Nevertheless, the Iowa Republican opposes
federal funding of experiments that may hold
bright promise for treating the afflictions:
research on embryonic stem cells. These cells
have the potential to develop into most of the
body's specialized tissues, including those of the
brain, heart, liver and blood. This raises
prospects that they could be used someday to
rehabilitate organs damaged by disease or
accident.
But the research also requires destruction of the
embryos. "It's the manipulation of a living
organism and the destruction of that organism,"
says Sen. Grassley, chairman of the Senate
Aging Committee and an antiabortion advocate.
The senator's views point up the challenge facing Daniel Perry, chairman of
Patients' Coalition for Urgent Research, made up of more than 30 groups
pressing for government funding of stem-cell work. The coalition, which
includes the American Parkinson's Disease Association, the Juvenile Diabetes
Foundation International and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, is
rallying patients to promote the potential breakthroughs offered by stem-cell
research. And it's trying to play down the hot-button abortion politics that are
inevitably part of the debate.
'The Patients Will Be Heard'
"Clearly, there will be an effort to bring this into the very sad and worn debate
on abortion," says Mr. Perry, who is also executive director for the nonprofit
Alliance for Aging Research. "But the patients will be heard, and we think the
members of Congress will make their decisions based on that." The strategy
was displayed at a recent coalition press conference. Michelle Puczynski, a
15-year-old resident of Toledo, Ohio, said she was diagnosed with juvenile
diabetes when she was just 13 months old and since then has "taken 16,500
injections of insulin just to survive."
But antiabortion groups are mobilizing their own troops for the increasingly
emotional battle. Funding embryo stem-cell research "would forge new ground
for active government support of research that takes human life," says Richard
Doerflinger, spokesman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops'
antiabortion secretariat. "This violates human experimentation norms because it
destroys one member of the human family to help another."
The fight is bound to intensify. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission,
in coming weeks, is expected to call for federal funding of some embryo
research, including stem-cell studies. There is now a congressional ban on
federal funding of research that results in harm to an embryo, although there's
a heated dispute about whether that ban extends to stem cells.
The Clinton administration argues that the stem-cell research can be funded, as
long as the stem cells are obtained from private sources and federal
researchers don't destroy the embryos themselves. The National Institutes of
Health is developing guidelines, to be proposed soon, to pave the way for such
funding. But dozens of members of Congress sharply criticize the
administration position.
"It's an outrageous interpretation of this law," says New Hampshire Sen.
Robert Smith, a Republican candidate for president. Dozens of lawmakers, led
by GOP Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas, have protested. They are planning to
add an explicit ban on the funding of embryonic stem-cell research to this
year's spending bill for the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the
Department of Health and Human Services.
New Scientific Breakthroughs
The congressional embryo-research ban has been approved each year since
1995, but new scientific breakthroughs promise to turn this year's debate into a
major brouhaha. Last fall, researchers from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and Johns Hopkins University reported that they had
succeeded in isolating and culturing embryonic stem cells -- something
scientists had been attempting for more than a decade. The work, the
University of Wisconsin trumpeted at the time, "opens the door to growing
from scratch everything from heart muscle to bone marrow and brain tissue."
But the research also raises the tricky question of the source of the stem cells.
Johns Hopkins University scientists working on one of the breakthrough
studies derived the cells from aborted fetuses; University of Wisconsin
researchers used leftover embryos donated by couples who had gone through
in vitro fertilization at private fertility clinics. Scientists estimate there are tens
of thousands of such extra embryos stored in liquid nitrogen in private clinics.
It was in the wake of the groundbreaking research that HHS issued a legal
ruling earlier this year saying that NIH could fund stem-cell research. GOP
California Rep. Brian Bilbray believes such research is badly needed. "Literally,
it's a breakthrough that can put people back on their feet," he says.
But opponents argue that funding embryo stem-cell research isn't necessary.
New studies, they note, suggest that adult stem cells may be able to do some
of the same things as embryonic stem cells. "Why engage in the legality or
illegality, morality or immorality of it when it's just not necessary?" says Sen.
Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican. Mr. Perry counters that establishing a
"no-fly zone," in which adult cells could be used by scientists, but not embryo
cells, would stifle research.
Ethical Questions
The complex ethical questions involved in the research are stirring debate
across the country. David Cox, professor of genetics and pediatrics at
Stanford University, says the central questions include: How should the
medical potential of the stem cells be balanced against the requirement that
embryos be destroyed to get the cells? What are acceptable sources for human
stem cells? Is it all right to create embryos for the research, or only to use
embryos that are being discarded anyway? Is a scientist who uses stem cells
complicit with the act of destroying embryos?
Despite the difficulty of the issue, Dr. Cox believes the pendulum is swinging
toward allowing federally funded research, because of the tremendous potential
of embryonic stem cells.
That view may be right, says Republican Rep. John Porter of Illinois, chairman
of the House appropriations subcommittee that handles NIH funding. Rep.
Porter, who supports federal funding, doesn't believe that Rep. Dickey and his
allies will be able to muster the votes to stop it.
To build support for federal funding, Tim Leschan, director of public policy
for the American Society for Cell Biology, has been urging research and patient
organizations to call members of Congress. In addition, he has organized
briefings for congressional staffers to explain exactly what embryonic stem
cells are -- and why they're important. "I thought that had a tremendous
effect," he says.
The feelings are running high on both sides. Consider a recent exchange of
letters in the newspaper Roll Call, which covers Congress. Rep. Dickey wrote,
"Just because the embryo, to which I attribute the same moral status as a live
human baby, is so young that it has not yet developed legs and arms and eyes,
an individual does not have the right to kill that embryo to derive stem cells for
research purposes."
But Joseph Bailey, a resident of Alexandria, Va., replied that his life has been
devastated by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or "Lou Gehrig's Disease." As far
as the leftover embryos at fertility clinics, he wrote, "No life will ever come
from these sources, except perhaps mine and more than 100 million other
Americans suffering from fatal and chronic diseases."
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