IF THERE WERE EVER any doubts that the National Academy of Sciences is pursuing an “anything” goes approach to biotechnological research, they were erased by the organization’s recently published tome, Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. The purported purpose of Guidelines is to create voluntary ethical protocols to govern human embryonic stem cell and therapeutic cloning research– “to assure the public that such research is being conducted in an ethical manner.” Setting aside for the moment whether human cloning and embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) can ever be ethical–a matter that remains heatedly controversial–the NAS Guidelines clearly don’t deliver the goods.
Remember when, in 2001, proponents of federally funded embryonic stem cell research repeatedly told us that all they wanted was access to embryos leftover from in vitro fertilization treatments (IVF) that were due to be destroyed anyway? Remember when ESCR advocates repeatedly asserted that they would never countenance the making of human embryos solely for use in research? These warm assurances were intended to convince a wary public that scientists deeply respected human life in all its stages and to soothingly assure us that biotechnologists would limit their investigations to embryos that were already doomed.
