{"id":53905,"date":"2016-09-30T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T16:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/supreme\/legal-commentary\/the-stem-cell-debate.html"},"modified":"2016-09-30T11:27:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T16:27:00","slug":"the-stem-cell-debate","status":"publish","type":"supreme","link":"https:\/\/supreme.findlaw.com\/legal-commentary\/the-stem-cell-debate.html","title":{"rendered":"The Stem Cell Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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THE STEM CELL DEBATE: Why Both Sides Of The Controversy Are At Odds With The “Pro-Life Position <\/h1><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

By SHERRY F. COLB<\/h2><\/a><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Wednesday, Aug. 01, 2001<\/td>\n\n <\/tr>\n <\/table>\n

On July 17, the House of Representatives held hearings at which members of \nthe public weighed in on both sides of the stem cell research debate. Should the \nfederal government continue to withhold funding from potentially lifesaving research \nthat utilizes discarded human embryos? Those who addressed the House subcommittee \nincluded parents of small children whose very existence might now, or could someday, \nbe attributed to the federal government’s approach to resolving this question.<\/p>\n

One father of twins, for example, held up his two boys while his wife displayed \na picture of the donated frozen embryos that later grew into the twins. He asked \nthe people assembled, “Which of my children would you kill?”<\/p>\n

But another set of twins, twelve years old and devout Roman Catholics, took \nthe opposite position. One of them has struggled with diabetes since she was four \nyears old, and her healthy sister spoke of watching her suffer all of these years. \nTreating her condition might only be possible with research using embryonic cells.<\/p>\n

Though poignant, the arguments pressed by all of the parents and children \nare at war with the position that the embryos of which they speak really are persons. \nAs I have argued in an \nearlier column<\/a>, the answer to the question of whether embryos are persons \ndoes not emerge from debates about abortion. It does, however, squarely present \nitself in stem cell discussions. The answer one gives to this question, moreover, \nhas important policy implications beyond the current issue of stem cell research.<\/p>\n

Personhood and the Pro-Stem Cell Research Position<\/b><\/p>\n

If we assume that personhood begins at conception, then there are difficulties \nwith both sets of arguments before Congress. Begin with those who support embryonic \nexperimentation. No matter how worthy a goal it is to save lives and combat suffering, \nour society has unequivocally rejected the morality of killing some persons in \norder to help others.<\/p>\n

We cannot, for example, kill one man to provide organs that would save ten. \nIndeed, we cannot even take organs from a death row inmate who, like the frozen \nembryo, will eventually be destroyed anyway.<\/p>\n

Consider, as well, the difference between the context of abortion, where the \nputative person is within a woman’s body, and that of the frozen embryo. When \nan unwanted embryo is within a pregnant woman, its survival is possible only by \nforcing a tremendous physical intrusion upon the unwilling woman.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the frozen embryo’s continued existence does not injure anyone’s \nbodily integrity. If one takes the position that the frozen embryo is a person, \none should therefore believe that research using the embryo is immoral. Granted, \nsome other person might benefit from the use of that embryo. But that does not \njustify the research \u0097 any more than it would justify taking one man’s heart \nor lungs to save the life of his next-door neighbor.<\/p>\n

\n\nPersonhood and the Anti-Stem Cell Research Position<\/b><\/p>\n

Consider now the father whose twins originated as donated embryos. His argument \nagainst “killing” his children might at first glance seem true to the pro-life \nposition \u0097 or perhaps even to be an extension of that position. He views \nthe frozen embryos that gave rise to his children as full persons and argues that \nnone of them should be subject to sacrifice to cure another’s illness.<\/p>\n

But if the father truly views embryos as persons, then he has engaged in conduct \nthat is profoundly immoral under his own belief system. That is because frozen \nembryos <\/p>\n<\/span>\n\n \n \n
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are themselves the products of a process that intentionally creates numerous \nembryos headed for “slaughter.” The process is in vitro fertilization (IVF).<\/p>\n

To prepare for IVF, a doctor induces superovulation in a woman, a condition\nin which she matures many eggs in one month, instead of the usual single egg. \nThe doctor then extracts and fertilizes the resulting eggs with either a partner’s \nor donor’s sperm, thus creating as many zygotes as possible. The cells then divide \nfor a few days prior to embryo transfer.<\/p>\n

Only a few of the resulting embryos, however, will now be implanted in the \nwoman whose eggs were fertilized. This is how the frozen embryo \u0097 the embryo \nwhich is not implanted a few days after fertilization \u0097 comes into being. \nIn the future, it either will be implanted, discarded, or used for research.<\/p>\n

A person who implants a donated frozen embryo therefore uses and subsidizes \nan industry that intentionally creates many more embryos than will be allowed \nto survive. If that person believes embryos are persons, then he must think of \nhimself as patronizing an industry that creates people only (in many cases) to \nkill them.<\/p>\n

The father of the twins might respond that he is simply “rescuing” embryos \nwho have already been created and who would, absent his intervention, perish. \nBut in order to use a frozen embryo, as he and his wife did, a couple must work \nwith, and pay the fees of, the very same fertility doctors who create sets of \nembryos, many slated for destruction, every day.<\/p>\n

Moreover, those who have testified against government funding for stem cell \nresearch using frozen embryos clearly believe that paying money constitutes enough \ninvolvement to taint the payor. By the same logic, the opponents of such research \nshould also refuse to fund IVF as it is currently practiced. That means, among \nother things, not using fertility doctors themselves.<\/p>\n

The Consequences for IVF of the Belief that Embryos Are Persons<\/b><\/p>\n

If embryos are persons, then IVF medicine must change dramatically. People \nwho undergo the procedure should not, for example, have the option of deciding \nnot to donate extra embryos to other couples. They would have to choose between \nimplanting them, now or at some future time, or donating them to others. The government, \nin turn, should pay the cost of preserving abandoned embryos, just as it now covers \nemergency neo-natal intensive care for infants without caretakers. Until such \nchanges are implemented, people truly opposed to killing embryos should refuse \nto subsidize fertility clinics.<\/p>\n

Yet such reforms might strike many consumers of IVF treatments as undesirable. \nMany people who create embryos for implantation are unwilling to see those embryos \nimplanted in other people. Like some men who prefer not to donate to a sperm bank, \nmany couples would rather not reproduce at all than reproduce without having any \nsubsequent relationship with resulting offspring.<\/p>\n

Those who would oppose compelled donation do not, in other words, really think \nof embryos as children to be kept or given up for adoption. They think of them \ninstead as special property, the destiny of which should be in their hands unless \nand until the property actually becomes persons.<\/p>\n

For those who embrace the view that embryos are persons, this common intuition \nabout the status of embryos presents a challenge. They may describe stem cell \nresearch as homicide, but they must recognize that doing so entails a description \nof current fertility treatments as homicide as well, albeit homicide that is intimately \nlinked to creating other lives. They would have to insist that all unutilized \nfrozen embryos be preserved and made available to interested couples, regardless \nof the original couples’ respective wishes. After all, one could not give up a \nchild after birth but insist that the child be discarded or used for research.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more realistically, the pro-life opponent of stem cell research might\nsimply oppose IVF altogether, a position taken by the Vatican. The person who \nbelieves that life begins at conception but supports stem cell research has a \ndifferent problem on her hands. She, by accepting both of these arguments, implicitly \naccepts the notion that full persons may be sacrificed to save other full persons’ \nlives. Would she feel the same way about unwanted persons who had already been \nborn?<\/p>\n

The All-Or-Nothing Stem Cell Research Debate<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps the lesson in all of this is that the stem cell research debate is \nphilosophically an all-or-nothing proposition. Only those who believe that an \nembryo is not<\/i> a person and is not<\/i> entitled to the rights of persons \ncan legitimately promote the undeniable benefits available if we use embryonic \nstem cells either to research and cure disease or to provide infertile couples \nwith children. And only those deeply opposed to the current practice of IVF can \ntake a principled position against stem cell research as the killing of a human \nbeing.<\/p>\n

This might mean that abortion opponents who support stem cell research do not \nhonestly believe that embryos are persons. Or, more cynically, perhaps some of \nthem do believe it, but only so long as it means forcing a woman to carry an unwanted \npregnancy. What it certainly means is that those who adopt frozen embryos lack \nmoral standing to accuse researchers of murder.<\/p>\n<\/span> \n\n

\n\n\n<\/a>\nSherry F. Colb, a FindLaw columnist, is a Professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark\n\n

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