EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS: A MORAL HOPE

As a practicing physician for almost 30 years, I have witnessed many wonderful advances in the science of medicine. Indeed, many of the therapies that benefit my patients today on a routine basis were not imagined when I graduated from medical school in 1973.

These advances have occurred, for the most, in the absence of politicization. They have come from the drive to ease human suffering -- to cure disease. Few among us have not benefited from these humane advances.

As we stand on the threshold of revolutionary discoveries that promise to change medicine forever, I thought to offer my perspective.

We know that embryonic stem cells can differentiate into any tissue of the human body. Might they, therefore, also be able to treat diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes? In principle, this ability to differentiate into blood, muscle or neural tissue may make embryonic stem cells the gold standard for replacing bad tissue with good. But some antiabortion advocates, rankled that these cellular chameleons come from embryos, call for a categorical ban on funding this research.

In 1996, Congress forbade the use of federal funds for research that would involve destroying human embryos. Last year, however, the National Institutes of Health issued guidelines, supported by the Clinton administration, that would allow embryonic stem-cell research to continue as long as the harvesting step was not conducted with federal funds. In-vitro fertilization clinics have been a source of the cells because such clinics regularly discard frozen embryos left over after conception attempts.

Eighty Nobel laureates and a variety of research institutions have petitioned the president not to stand in the way of the research. They maintain that a ban will hinder all progress on stem cells and that the United States in particular would stand to lose competitiveness in biotech. It is the responsibility of our government to act in such a manner as to preserve the future scientific pre-eminence of the United States in the area that is likely to eclipse silicon technology in importance in the 21st century.

Polls have suggested that most of the American public also think embryonic cell research should continue, which means the government must decide how to balance ethical objections from a minority against the wishes of the majority. It would be a mistake to think that the pro-life side has undisputed claim to the moral high ground. Many people question whether it is right to ignore research that offers the best hope for treating or curing so many cruel illnesses.

Opponents of the research might retort: Why not continue using only adult stem cells? Some stem cells can be found in adult tissue as well, after all.

The scientific answer is that we don't yet know whether the adult cells necessarily retain the full plasticity of the embryonic ones. Research should and will continue on the adult stem cells. If they ultimately prove as capable as or better than embryonic ones, everybody wins. Until then, however, adult stem-cell work can only be an adjunct to the embryonic work.

The embryonic stem cells are from embryos that are already abandoned by their parents as byproducts of other conception attempts. Currently these embryos have exactly zero chance of ever maturing into human beings. Embryonic stem-cell research offers the cells more opportunity for life than they would otherwise see. It offers many afflicted people an opportunity for healthier, longer lives. Saving embryonic stem-cell research may not be an easy choice, but it is the right and moral one.

What, then, should the government's role be?

The American Founders wanted to establish a society in which various peoples could practice their religion, but they would not be permitted to dedicate the public life of America to Christianity, nor could any group use the power of the government to impose their beliefs on others. The Framers of the Constitution were terrified of importing to America the religious divisions that had wrecked much of Europe. They designed our government so that the public work of society could be conducted on a secular basis. No witch burnings. No inquisitions. They expelled religion from the sphere of government and consigned it to the local or private area. This is the meaning of "separation of church and state."

Thomas Jefferson said, "If a society is peaceful and prosperous, who cares what people believe about the afterlife? It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Should minority religious beliefs now, blest by the state 225 years later, sentence living human beings with mothers, fathers, siblings and children to blindness, amputations, dialysis, dementia? This is the moral high ground?

Human dignity and the will of God should guide our personal conduct, but different gods tend to have different wills. Different prophets have different teachings. And different theologians have different interpretations. It does not inspire confidence that the ancient prophets whose words are being interpreted for us had never heard of stem cells or embryos or diabetes.

In 1633, Pope Urban VIII placed Galileo, the father of modern science, under house arrest and banned his books for the heresy of suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun. In 1992, Pope John Paul II pardoned Galileo, observing that the affair "has been interpreted as the reflection of a fundamental opposition between science and faith."

It took the Roman Catholic Church 350 years to make amends. How many must live with pain, loss of human dignity and die early deaths because some want to push back the legal definition of the onset of life to the moment of fertilization? Choices made about issues such as this do not resonate over months, years or even election cycles. They resonate over centuries, over millennia.

This is the suppression of science by religion, the challenge of new discoveries to ancient beliefs, the struggle against intolerance for freedom of thought. The opponents of embryonic stem-cell research seem to show a greater fondness for their own opinions than they do for the suffering of innocent victims of dreadful diseases. This is their right. It is not right for our government to do the same.

Dr. J. Russell Felker of Cape Girardeau is a urologist.