President Bush just issued the first veto of his presidency, blocking a bill that would have permitted federal funding for research on new embryonic stem cell lines. Most conservatives wish his first veto had come years ago, striking down any of the countless budget-busting, pork-filled spending bills the president has gladly signed over the last five-and-a-half years.
And most everyone with a family member suffering from diabetes, Parkinson’s disease or heart failure wishes Bush had kept that historic veto pen in his pocket this time.
Today there are three sources for stem cells: embryos, adult tissues and umbilical cords. Adult stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells have already been successfully used in treatments for leukemia and multiple sclerosis. However, most researchers believe that stem cells derived from embryos hold more long-term promise for developing cures and transplantable tissues. Numerous polls show more than two-thirds of Americans support stem cell research because they accept the claims of researchers that stem cells may well be used to produce transplantable tissues and cells to heal damaged hearts, cure diabetes, alleviate Parkinson’s disease and mend broken spinal cords.
Pointing to a group of children born with the help of in vitro fertilization at the veto ceremony, Bush said, “These boys and girls are not spare parts. They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research.”
It is ironic that Bush hailed in vitro fertilization while pandering to the religious right by preventing stem cell research. Much like they oppose stem cell research today, religious conservatives have opposed in vitro fertilization since its inception in the late ’70s — despite the fact that more than 1 million families have experienced the joy of bearing children via in vitro fertilization.
Bush claims he’s blocking stem cell research because each embryo “is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value.” If that were true, we would constantly be in the midst of a holocaust. John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President’s Council on Bioethics that millions of embryos — between 60 percent and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos — are simply flushed out in women’s normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we’re talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place. What are we to think about the fact that Nature (and for believers, Nature’s God) profligately creates and destroys human embryos?
Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a child — and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people. Similarly, 3- to 5-day old frozen embryos leftover from in vitro fertilization attempts are not people either. It is true that every person was once an embryo, but not all — in fact, most embryos do not become people.
Back in 2001, President Bush declared in a nationally televised speech that he was restricting federal funds to research on existing embryonic stem cell lines, “where the life and death decision has already been made.” The bill that Bush vetoed would have allowed federal funding for research using stem cell lines derived from embryos leftover from fertility treatments. Studies show there are as many as 400,000 surplus embryos currently frozen in U.S. fertility clinics. Since the couples who created the embryos have no intention of implanting them in an attempt to bear children, those frozen embryos are just like the embryos that produced the stem cell lines that President Bush supports — the “life and death decision” has already been made for them. The vast majority of those spare embryos will simply be discarded unless they are used for stem cell research.
During the Senate debate on the stem cell bill, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn. compared the president’s position to those who opposed Columbus, imprisoned Galileo, and rejected anesthesia, electricity, vaccines and rail travel. Such attitudes, Specter declared, “In retrospect look foolish, look absolutely ridiculous.” The Senator is right; they will.
Ronald Bailey is science correspondent at Reason magazine (www.reason.com) and author of “Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution” (Prometheus Books).
