UCLA Stem Cell Ethics Panel Ignores Heart of Controversy

In our national debate, one of the center-stage bioethics issues is embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Prior to attending UCLA’s public symposium on human stem cells, I decided to investigate the big-picture facts and distinctions concerning the controversy. I discovered:

• There are two broad categories of human stem cell research: adult stem cell research (ASCR) and embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), with the latter being the point of contention.
• There are two main concerns with ESCR: 1. the killing of human beings at the embryonic stage and 2. the cloning of human beings.
• The only way to acquire human embryonic stem cells is to kill a human embryo.
• Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) is a method used in ESCR by which human embryos are cloned.

My discoveries show that this is a topic about the nature and value of human life itself, requiring its handling with careful distinctions and clarity of thought. I went into the symposium expecting to hear answers to questions like: Where do we get human embryonic stem cells? What is the embryo? Should tax dollars go to clone human beings? Are all human beings valuable or only some? What makes human beings at the embryonic stage less valuable than human beings at the infant or toddler stage and why are those differences relevant? Bearing my discoveries in mind, I paid close attention during the “Stem Cells and Ethics” portion of the symposium. The topic was to be covered by 4 lecturers (only 3 showed up) and a moderator—the sort of thing one would expect for a debate on an important, pressing controversy. However, and sadly, nothing resembling a debate ever happened.

The first speaker was Glen McGee on the topic of What’s in the Dish? (referring to the Petri dish where ASCR and ESCR take place). Instead of answering that foundational, crucial question of what is it that is in the dish, he used his lecture to advocate for a “common language discussion” on stem cell research that uses “new words in better ways to get social consensus” and avoids “political”, emotive language used in states “less blue than ours” (meaning less liberal/democratic than California). As it turns out, the language he is referring to by “political” is language such as killing the most vulnerable among us. Well, answering “what’s in the dish” will determine whether or not such language is indeed political (whatever that means) or perfectly appropriate. He asked many more questions, rarely answering them and often dismissing them. For example, he asked Is it the DNA that makes [the human embryo]alive? followed by That’s a weird question that philosophers ask. Other crucial, yet unanswered questions included: At what point is the frozen embryo viable? What does viability mean? And though these and other essential questions were left unanswered, at no time did Mr. McGee advocate the use of caution in research that kills or clones human embryos—humans at the embryonic stage that appear to be valuable members of the human family.

The next lecture What’s In it for Egg Donors? by Dr. Mildred Cho focused on a controversy regarding the donation of eggs for experimentation. This highly specific issue was outside the scope of the major controversy of ESCR. Dr. Cho, though unashamedly in favor of ESCR, offered nothing in terms of an argument in its favor. I spoke with her at length after the lecture and she admitted that the unborn is a living, whole human being from the moment of conception (and thus at the embryonic stage) yet she was unsure at what developmental point human beings become too valuable to kill for research. My question to her was If you don’t know whether or not a human is valuable at the embryonic stage then why advocate the dismemberment of them for research? Her response was revealing, The current policy allows for the use of certain frozen embryos in research, those are the only ones being used. In other words, “I’m not going to answer your question.”

The final lecture Embryo Ethics: A Religious Perspective by Dr. Kevin FitzGerald, I thought would have the most promise of actually answering the real issue and perhaps bring more balance to the two lectures which enthusiastically supported ESCR. Dr. FitzGerald’s lecture amounted to a modified pro-ESCR position that served to further confuse the issue. His argument was that no one knows when [biological] life begins (I don’t know why Dr. Cho didn’t correct him here) and Catholics believe that there is so much more to us than just our cells, we are valuable to God because we reason and love, those are the real characteristics that make us valuable as human beings. Though he is not in favor of using “unfrozen” humans at the embryonic stage of development he is in favor of using humans earlier than the embryonic stage of development as well as frozen human embryos. He did not offer a clear reason why he advocates such a seemingly arbitrary position on human life and thereby digresses from the clear Catholic position.

It is clear to me that those who advocate the killing and cloning of human beings have on them the burden of proof to demonstrate that their research methods violate no ethical laws and do not destroy valuable, innocent, and defenseless human life. It is a disservice to the UCLA community to invite a one-sided ethics panel that results in a rubber stamp approval for UCLA’s ESCR agenda. I suggest open dialogue & debate on these issues and a serious reconsideration of the University’s positive position on human embryo-killing and human cloning methods.

~ by Barron on February 13, 2006.