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Sunday, February 4, 2007
Redefining death: Conservatives and embryonic stem cell research
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A scenario is building in Washington that, sometime soon, could require conservative Christians who form the Republican base to reconsider embryonic stem cell research.
It’s even possible that President Bush, who vetoed one bill on the topic last year and may soon veto another, will be the one to ask them to adjust their attitudes.
The terms won’t go down well with America’s scientific community, or with the organizations demanding federal funding to wipe out Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or diabetes.
But it might be something all sides in the stem cell debate will have to live with, at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
The operating thought was voiced two years ago by Donald Landry, a professor of medicine at Columbia University, when he testified before Bush’s panel on bioethics.
“We’re proposing a new definition for human death,” he said.
If you’ve tracked politics, you know the history.
Human stem cells are those do-anything, be-everything bits from fertilized eggs that scientists discovered not too long ago. Because they can be coaxed into developing into virtually any kind of tissue, they’re believed to hold the key to all manners of cures - even spinal cord injuries.
The embryos in question, mere pinpricks of existence, are spares discarded by pregnancy clinics, with the permission of parental donors. But because the embryos are destroyed when the stem cells are removed, some - though not all - religious conservatives equate the process with abortion.
That has made the politics of embryonic stem cell research a simple matter. Democrats favor it, as do most Americans, polls show. Republicans are split.
Congressional elections in November did not change those dynamics significantly. Last month, the U.S. House passed a measure nearly identical to the one a Republican Congress approved in July, permitting federal funds to be spent for research using any donated embryo.
But as in July, the January margin was not veto-proof.
That said, Bush still faces the prospect a Democratic-controlled Congress pounding at his door with measure after measure on stem cell research.
The ‘08 elections already loom, and relentless progress by science has added to the pressure. A University of Georgia researcher recently announced he has developed a process to produce stem cells for brain and nerve tissue by the billions.
Three Republican-backed bills are now before Congress. Each one has been built in consultation with the White House. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) is a lead sponsor of one. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, also of Georgia, has introduced another.
All three measures have one feature in common: They would restrict federally funded researchers to “organismically dead” embryos. It’s a hair-splitting term to most scientists, but one that could become essential to Republicans.
Quick science lesson: When a human being is legally dead, when the brain ceases to function, that does not mean the dearly departed is thoroughly and completely dead.
Organs can still function. Cells can still absorb and divide. That’s how transplants are possible.
Embryos are multi-celled organisms that have not yet developed a nervous system. At least some scientists, among them Landry, say there is a window of time in which an expiring, discarded embryo, if not exactly brain dead, is “organismically dead.”
But like a fully grown human corpse, its body remains temporarily vital. Stem cells can be ethically removed.
The moral metaphor becomes the organ transplant, rather than abortion.
The question is now whether Republicans in Congress can put that new definition for death into words that will satisfy religious conservatives.
“It could well be a hard sell,” said Nigel Cameron, president of the Chicago-based Institute of Biotechnology and the Human Future.
The institute’s members have been involved in some of the discussions. “A lot depends on how this is framed. If this is framed as a bona fide middle way, then it could be found to be acceptable,” Cameron said. If the GOP effort is viewed as a legal sleight-of-hand, to circumvent a sticky political situation, then it’s doomed.
How does Bush fit into this? If religious conservatives buy in, and if Republican stem cell bills stall - as is highly possible in a Democratic Congress - there’s talk that Bush could implement portions of the GOP legislation administratively.
Including the new definition for human death.
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