Stem
Cells Without Moral Corruption
Congress Can Give Research a Boost Without Supporting the Misuse of
Human Embryos
By Robert P. George and Eric Cohen
The Washington Post
Thursday, July 6, 2006; A21
For the past few years many of the world's leading scientists have
promoted so-called therapeutic cloning as the most promising way to
produce clinically useful, genetically tailored, biologically versatile
stem cells. That is why claims by a team of South Korean researchers --
one in 2004 that the first cloned human embryo had been produced, then
another in 2005 that the process of producing embryonic stem cell lines
from cloned embryos could be done routinely and efficiently -- were
hailed as a watershed.
Hwang Woo Suk, the lead researcher, became an international celebrity.
The best American scientists traveled to Seoul to observe his
laboratory and study his techniques. Hwang called his work "holy, pure
and genuine."
But then the world discovered that it was all a scandalous fraud. Last
November, we learned that Hwang had used eggs procured from junior
researchers in his own lab -- a violation of the Helsinki Declaration
that governs medical research -- and then lied to cover it up. His
partner, Roh Sung Il, paid "volunteers" for additional eggs and forced
them to lie about it on their consent forms. Then, in a succession of
astonishing revelations, it became clear that the published data had
been fabricated. Apparently no cloned human embryos were ever produced;
no embryonic stem cells were ever created.
Of course, some dismiss the South Korean fraud as the work of a few bad
scientific apples and even cite such errant behavior as a reason for
American researchers to create and destroy cloned embryos for
themselves. Harvard University recently approved research cloning, and
some states have set aside public money for such experiments. The
scientific argument, made with great hype, remains the same: If you
want useful stem cells, you need to create and destroy cloned human
embryos.
But this is exactly the wrong lesson to draw from the South Korean
scandal. Cloning will always be morally corrupt because it requires
deliberately creating and destroying thousands (or millions) of human
embryos. At the same time, the current effort in Congress to expand
federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to include embryos left
over in fertility clinics will never satisfy the scientists, because
such stem cells will not give them the genetic control they want over
the cells. The real lesson of the cloning scandal -- and the real
opportunity now before us -- is to find a scientific alternative to
research cloning, one that gives us the stem cells we desire without
the ethical violations we abhor.
Hwang's violation involved the exploitation of women, who undergo a
risky and unpleasant procedure -- first, ovarian hyperstimulation, then
the insertion of a needle into their ovaries to procure the wanted
oocytes -- with no medical benefit to themselves. In the attempt to
produce a single cloned embryo, thousands of eggs were harvested and
used as raw materials.
In South Korea, the buying and selling of eggs was done in the shadows,
covered up by false documents and brazen lies. This would never happen
in America, researchers assure us. But as time goes on, rather than
calling research cloning itself into question, some will call the
ethical limits into question: Why not pay women for their eggs? Why not
induce poor women to profit by risking their health? Of course, no
responsible doctor could advise his patient to undergo such a
procedure. But perhaps we will simply "update" basic medical ethics as
well, and decide that the "good of mankind" trumps the good of
individual patients.
We have seen where this amoral logic leads us -- to shameful abuses of
research subjects, which surely no one wants to repeat. But we have
also seen, in the stem cell debate, how moral lines erode quickly --
from using only "spare" embryos left over in fertility clinics to
creating human embryos solely for research to creating (or trying to
create) cloned embryos solely for research. What will be next? Probably
proposals for "fetal farming" -- the gestation of human embryos to
later developmental stages, when potentially more useful stabilized
stem cells can be obtained and organ primordia can be "harvested."
Over and over again, scientists and ethicists say: Here and no farther.
And then they seek to go farther, in the name of "progress." Yet this
moral challenge also presents us with a golden political opportunity.
Last week the Senate agreed to consider three bioethics bills: one that
would permit federal funding for research on embryos left over in
fertility clinics, one that would prohibit fetal farming and one that
would fund various alternative methods of producing genetically
controlled, pluripotent stem cells -- just the kind of stem cells we
would get from cloning, but without the embryo destruction.
The first of these bills is misguided and unnecessary, and those
senators who have pledged to support it should reconsider and change
course. For the first time, it would use taxpayer dollars to encourage
the destruction of embryos, and it would do so without giving
researchers the genetically customized cells they desire. The second
and third bills, however, would enable our country to explore the
potential of stem cells without violating human dignity or taking human
life.
In the end, the lesson of the cloning scandal is not simply that
specific research guidelines were violated; it is that human cloning,
even for research, is so morally problematic that its practitioners
will always be covering their tracks, especially as they try to meet
the false expectations of miraculous progress that they have helped
create. If cloning is really so important for research, then
overturning the Bush administration policy to fund research on "spare"
IVF embryos is not very useful. But because cloning is so morally
problematic, we need to find another way forward.
Instead of engaging in fraud and coverup, or conducting experiments
that violate the moral principles of many citizens, we should look to
scientific creativity for an answer. Since the cloning fraud, many
scientists -- such as Markus Grompe at Oregon Health & Science
University and Rudolf Jaenisch at MIT -- have been doing just that. And
others, such as Kevin Eggan at Harvard, may have found a technique,
called "cell fusion," that would create new, versatile, genetically
controlled stem cell lines by fusing existing stem cells and ordinary
DNA. Scientists in Japan just announced that they may have found a way
to do this without even needing an existing stem cell line.
In other words: all the benefits of research cloning without the
ethical problems. Looking ahead, it is becoming increasingly likely
that reprogramming adult cells to pluripotency, rather than destroying
human embryos, will be the future of regenerative medicine. It offers
both a more efficient and far more ethical way forward.
Of course, we should not pin all our hopes on any particular technique,
which is why the bill co-sponsored by Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen
Specter (usually sharp opponents in the stem cell fight) would fund any
creative proposal for advancing stem cell research without destroying
nascent human life. Too often in this debate, science and ethics are
regarded as being on a collision course. They need not be. For what
could be more pro-science than relying upon scientific ingenuity to
lead the way to stem cell advances without conducting unethical cloning
experiments?
Robert P. George is McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton
University and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. Eric
Cohen is a fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and editor of
the New Atlantis.