It took President Bush half a year, but we finally have a decision. Last Thursday, he finally made the toughest choice so far in his young presidency: the government funding of research on embryonic stem cells. No matter what side you’re on in this debate, the decision is the best you are going to get.
In a speech from his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Bush announced that federal funds would be used to support research for stem-cell lines that have already been created, but that there would be no funding for any new extraction of embryonic stem cells. These are cells that come from blastocysts, the dividing of the union of sperm and egg that becomes an embryo and eventually a human. These cells also regenerate indefinitely, making them as close to immortal as anything gets in this world. These cells also have not yet specialized themselves into specific duties in the body, and so can “morph” into any cell in the human body. As it currently stands, stem-cell research has resulted in approximately 60 “lines,” or self-replicating colonies of these cells. Supporters of research look to possible miracle cures for everything from spinal injuries to Alzheimer’s disease. The main problem, and hence the moral question, is that these blastocysts are made up entirely of stem cells, and so are destroyed as the cells are extracted. Also, because these are the progenitors of humans, there are those who would say that to harvest stem cells is little better than murder.
It was in a way a watershed decision: Bush took a consummately political decision and kept politics out of it. His decision was at once pragmatic and emotional. Everyone comes away with something, apparently, but nobody gets their way completely. In my mind, a decision that neither side is completely happy with is most likely the best. Still, he now has to walk this tightrope for the rest of his administration, and it could still come to backfire on him come election time should either the anti-abortion or pro-choice lobby come to see this stance as a compromise it’s not willing to accept.
Furthermore, this decision does leave some big loopholes open. First, Bush barely sidestepped the religion versus science argument that turned stem cells into a surrogate battlefield for the pro-choice/anti-abortion war by acknowledging where the stem-cell lines came from, but realizing that the genie is out of the bottle. His announcement will not sit well with anti-abortion advocates who see Bush as condoning the destruction of embryos for scientific ends. Also, Bush did not prohibit research using new extraction: He merely barred federal money from being spent on it. By not allowing federal funding, or conversely calling for a ban on new extractions outright, Bush puts a chilling question to scientists. We have seen, with the decoding of the human genome, that genetics are a good business if their promises hold out. The problem is that many of these firms place profit before scientific openness. My concern is that, simply put, many of these groups would probably put their research under a veil of industrial secrecy to protect their “intellectual property.” This in and of itself is not problematic, as companies often have proprietary knowledge that they want to keep under wraps. Yet scientific knowledge should be out in the public to be checked by scientific peers who can duplicate the experiments or otherwise make sure that what happened actually happened.
There may still be a way for Bush to fund expanded stem-cell research and (miracle of miracles) keep both the anti-abortion and research communities happy. If research now ongoing in Los Angeles and Massachusetts pans out, scientists may actually be able to create blastocysts without conception, which is where theologians believe life begins. No conception equals perhaps no moral headaches for Bush and the religious right.
But still, Bush took a large step toward saving many lives with his decision. Let’s hope that someday it will pay off with the cures the medicos promise.
Pat Payne will be a columnist for the Oregon Daily Emerald in the fall.