Therapeutic cloning causes some to reassess
As I was reading about the successful cloning of human embryos recently, I happened to come across an obituary for a 93-year-old doctor named Landrum B. Shettles.
He had conducted some of the first in vitro fertilization experiments, the obit said. It told of his supervisor at the Columbia University medical school being outraged at his attempt in 1973 to create the first “test tube’ baby for an infertile couple. The supervisor — a fellow scientist — was so disturbed by the idea that he unsealed the flask carrying the woman’s eggs, destroying them before they could be fertilized and implanted.
The anecdote captured the hysteria that surrounded IVF at the time. People had visions of a “Brave New World,’ with factory workers fertilizing eggs in tubs of sperm and growing humans like Chia Pets. Thirty years later, with more than 100,000 babies born in the United States through IVF, the objections have disappeared. Over time, people redefined their assumptions.
The recent advances in cloning technology are sure to force a similar rethinking. Scientists are cloning embryos to extract stem cells for research into customized cures for Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s, diabetes. To extract the cells, however, they have to destroy the embryo.
This lands the science world smack in the middle of that most divisive of American topics — abortion.
For the staunchest opponents of abortion, the destruction of embryos for any reason, even one as noble as curing disease, is wrong. To them, human life begins at fertilization. So a dot-size embryo — like the ones used in stem-cell research — is imbued with the same sacred qualities as a human being walking the Earth. Saving lives by destroying others is morally unacceptable.
Though these sound very much like religious beliefs, they have guided the U.S. government’s response to this new research. In the House of Representatives, a bill to ban all therapeutic cloning research has already passed twice. (A similar bill has stalled in the Senate.) President Bush in 2001 banned all federally funded research of embryonic stem cells, except for those lines already in existence.
This means that scientists like Dr. Irving Weissman, the eminent Stanford professor who was among the earliest stem-cell researchers, are today’s version of the late Dr. Shettles. Their research has hurtled ahead of society’s comfort zone. And though Weissman says he is confident society will eventually catch up, he is frustrated with government leaders who are imposing their religious beliefs on scientists, to the detriment of the rest of the population.
Perhaps the conflicting values inherent in the cloning-research debate will help the president and others to revisit some assumptions about what it means to be human. Maybe they will find that to be truly “pro-life’ means helping people who are already alive.
Joan Ryan is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Send comments to her in care of this newspaper or send her e-mail at [email protected]