Stem cells and ethics

MR. GEORGE BUSH'S recent decision to approve limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research has focussed sharp attention on an area which holds out tremendous medical promise but is fraught with moral complexity. Not unexpectedly, the U.S. President's middle-of-the-road proposal has displeased those on both sides of the bio-ethical divide. Those who look forward to tapping the full potential of research on stem cells - which holds out the hope of combating a staggering variety of diseases - believe that Mr. Bush's half-hearted approval will frustrate important medical advances in this area. Others, particularly anti-abortionists, regard the President's decision as a betrayal of his campaign pledge and a morally unacceptable licence for the so-called ``destruction of human embryos''.

Essentially, stem cells are undifferentiated primitive cells with the ability to be coaxed into multiplying and morphing into specific kinds of cells. They hold out the promise of allowing medical researchers to grow specific cells or tissue which could then be used to treat a range of crippling ailments, including Alzheimer's disease and juvenile diabetes. While stem cells are found in adults (as in bone marrow), the best source - from the point of view of medical research - is very young foetal tissue. In a way, Mr. Bush's proposal is extremely restrictive: federal money may be used only to study those stem cells which have been previously harvested from left over or discarded human embryos at fertility clinics. In other words, the decision is intended specifically at discouraging the creation and subsequent destruction of new or additional human embryos for the purposes of medical research. Therefore, the anti-abortionist claim that Mr. Bush's proposal abets the destruction of human embryos is, to say the least, an overstatement.

Nevertheless, in granting limited support to stem cell research, Mr. Bush has risked the wrath of his conservative supporters - both within the Republican Party and among the public at large. His willingness to do so is likely to have stemmed, among other things, from the apprehension that a total lack of federal support to stem cell research will result in this whole field - which holds out tremendous human and commercial promise - shifting elsewhere. Governments in a number of other countries (for example, Australia, Japan and Singapore) are far more supportive of stem cell research. In India, the Department of Biotechnology has okayed a programme on stem cell research and hopes that a significant amount of funding is available for this purpose in the next five-year plan. And in Britain, which has emerged as something of a pioneer in this area, the House of Lords recently approved a radical move to clone human embryos for the purposes of stem cell research.

It would appear that a majority of people are uncomfortable with or opposed to a system under which human embryos are created and destroyed for the specific purpose of harvesting stem cells. However, there is far greater support (even within the United States) for permitting stem cells to be harvested from embryos which have no hope of survival, typically those which are left over from in vitro fertilisation procedures at fertility clinics. Recent findings that adult stem cells have a greater potential to morph into specific kinds of tissue than assumed earlier holds out the hope that stem cell research will be less dependent on human embryos as the years go by. If stem cell research were based wholly on adult stem cells, then the moral debate would simply be side-stepped or by-passed. Until then, it appears that little will bridge the ethical divide.

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