Is the Stem Cell Debate Over?

Nick Gillespie | June 6, 2005

Nope. Not even getting warmed up.

But two recent stories--one in the June ish of Wired and one in today's Wash Post hold forth the promise of basically creating embryo-free embryonic stem cells (let's bracket for the time being conversation over whether stem cells are going to pay off in the long haul).

From the Post story:

the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.

"That would really get around all the moral and ethical concerns," said James F. Battey, chief of the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health.

While I agree that embryo-free embryonic stem cells (perhaps sweetened with Splenda! for a low-cal, low-impact panacea) would shut down one large aspect of the debate over biotech, I think the issue is far more complicated.

That's because leading opponents to embryonic stem cells are not simply worried about the embryo issue--they fundamentally question whether we should be intervening to prolong and improve human lifespans and ameliorate human suffering.

For instance, here's Francis Fukuyama in a Reason debate on biotech opposing life extension for reasons that have nothing to do with embyros:

The argument that more medical advance is necessarily good needs to be treated with some skepticism. At the hearing on the Weldon bill banning cloning...a representative of a patients advocacy group said the baby boomers were getting older and desperately needed cures for a variety of diseases with which they would soon be afflicted-as if research cloning would prevent them from ever having to die. If you want a real nightmare scenario, consider one in which we double life spans but increase periods of debility by a few decades.

Fukuyama's full 2002 exchange with Redesigning Humans author Gregory Stock is online here. He also fretted over "refuse to get out of the way; not just of their children, but their grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

George W. Bush's bioethics kingpin, Leon Kass, is on record as saying, "The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not." Like Fukuyama and others that Reason's Ron Bailey has pegged as "pro-death," the core issue is not how we might extend life but whether we should.

Embryo-free embyronic stem cells may shut down one large part of the current debate, but it will hardly "get around all the moral and ethical concerns" in play. Nor should it, I might add.

Comments

|6.6.05 @ 11:07AM|#

In other news, the Supremes have just shut down medical marijuana.

|6.6.05 @ 11:15AM|#

Really? Aw, crap!

Jeff|6.6.05 @ 11:29AM|#

Bio-conservatism borders on a crime against humanity. I've said many times that Kass is already twice the expected lifespan of a century ago, and that I hope he spends the last years of his life tied to a machine.
To call for an outright ban on bio-tech (and have the nerve to call it a "debate") is sociopathic.
He is a monster, plain and simple.

|6.6.05 @ 11:58AM|#

Charles Mann's piece on the coming "death shortage" in a recent Atlantic laid out some of the logistical issues that will arise due to increased longevity -- such as the phenomenon well known to academics of the senior management (tenured professors) who just won't retire so the young folks can move up the chain. While the scary hed/subhed (Am I using that right?) might peg it as "pro-death", I would describe it more as apprehensive than hysterical. But then again, I consider the, um, "intellectual inconsistency" of the Bioethics Council sometimes in a category of its own.

Anon

|6.6.05 @ 12:11PM|#

Fukuyama is the same short-sighted solipsist who claimed that the end of the Cold War was also "the end of history;' i.e., now that this capitalism vs. communism thing has been settled there's absolutely nothing else left to fight about and humanity would living in boring peace forevermore. So why is he still being taken seriously at all?

|6.6.05 @ 12:17PM|#

And proponents of stem-cell research are not really interested in treating or curing diseases, but in destroying all moral restrictions to scientific research--it being one of the tenets of leftism that moral restrictions to human behavior are the primary hindrance to progress.

|6.6.05 @ 12:36PM|#

Ben's right. Jonas Salk didn't want to eradicate polio; he wanted to thwart the will of God.

Mike|6.6.05 @ 1:40PM|#

it being one of the tenets of leftism that moral restrictions to human behavior are the primary hindrance to progress.

Actually, I'd say it's a tenet of Liberalism that moral restrictions to human behavior hinder progress. And that's why the Enlightenment and modern science go hand in hand.

But feel free to roll back the clock to the days when modern medicine amounted to prayer and a big glass of quicksilver.

|6.6.05 @ 1:57PM|#

While I support longevity research, I do have some reservations about its effects on society which Reason often overlooks in its coverage of the subject. There appears to be a fairly strong correlation over the last century or so between improvements in health and longevity in societies and increases in demand for government protections from ever smaller threats. Of course, correlation does not equal causation, but this is something that bears examining.

gaius marius|6.6.05 @ 3:07PM|#

While I support longevity research, I do have some reservations about its effects on society which Reason often overlooks in its coverage of the subject.

agreed, mr sr. there's now a certain religion of scientism at work which goes unnoticed and uncommented upon, in which the believers see the cult of techne in an uncritical, utopian light as the solution to all ills, however minor.

discovery will happen; but conflating it with heaven and freiheit is a very dangerous thing.

|6.6.05 @ 7:08PM|#

leading opponents to embryonic stem cells are not simply worried about the embryo issue--they fundamentally question whether we should be intervening to prolong and improve human lifespans and ameliorate human suffering.

I'm pretty sure that most of those who oppose ESCR (myself included) would have no problem with totipotent stem cell research which did not require the destruction of embryos. Those few who oppose such research just because it meddles with nature, or some such, are a tiny minority, obviously afraid to expose the true reason for their opposition to ESCR.

Nature doesn't have rights; individuals (including embryos, imo) do. That's one main difference between Hinduism and Christianity.

|6.6.05 @ 7:17PM|#

SR,

THe increases in health and longevity are likewise correlated to many positive developments.

The trick is, I think, to investigate what other factors along with increased longevity lead to these demands for protection from everything. Then, work to mitigate them, rather than retarding further increases in health and longevity.

M. Simon|6.7.05 @ 2:25PM|#

In time the only difference between a skin cell and an embryo will be the proper chemical bath.

Then what?

If every cell in your body is a potential embryo what is special about an embryo?

|6.7.05 @ 4:51PM|#

If every cell in your body is a potential embryo what is special about an embryo?

That it's an actual embryo?