Stem cells: A new way to heal, and to destroy
U.S. Bishops condemn human embryo use, urge ethical adult stem cell advances
By NADIA MARIA SMITH
CS&T Staff Writer
Stem cell research is quickly becoming one of the most significant moral dilemmas of our time. For this reason, in June the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released an official statement on embryonic stem cell research articulating the Church’s stance.
“The issue of stem cell research does not force us to choose between science and ethics, much less between science and religion. It presents a choice as to how our society will pursue scientific and medical progress,” reads the U.S. Bishops’ statement.
“It now seems undeniable that once we cross the fundamental moral line that prevents us from treating any fellow human being as a mere object of research, there is no stopping point. The only moral stance that affirms the human dignity of all of us is to reject the first step down this path.”
How far will it go?
“Originally proponents said the embryonic stem cell research would only happen with spare frozen embryos that would be discarded from fertility clinics, but it has already gone past that,” said Richard M. Doerflinger, associate director for policy development for the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. “Now we have to ban the creation of human-animal hybrids for research.”
As the document notes, embryonic stem cell research has moved into human cloning with some researchers wanting to place “a developing cloned embryo in a woman’s womb for some weeks to harvest more useful tissues and organs — a grotesque practice that Congress has acted against through the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006.”
“Some would solicit women as egg donors for human cloning research, even offering cash payments to overcome the women’s qualms about the risk to their own health from the egg harvesting procedure,” the document states.
Neuroscientist and ethicist Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Wynnewood, looks across the Atlantic for the next step on the slippery slope.
“If you look at Great Britain, where they are at the cutting edge of this,” he said, “the regulatory agencies there have given approval to [create] human-animal hybrids because they can’t get women to agree to donate their eggs. So they are using cow eggs or pig eggs to make a mixed human. They are making humans that will have cow components.”
Though researchers have discovered how to non-destructively produce cells with the properties of embryonic stem cells by ‘reprogramming’ adult cells, [see graphic at right] “you are still hearing voices saying we have to destroy embryos, we have to make hybrids and all these other things, which of course are unethical,” Father Pacholczyk said.
Stem cells: Adults or embryos?
The Church is often represented as not supporting stem cell research, but in fact as the Bishops note, “Catholic foundations and medical centers have been and will continue to be among the leading supporters of ethically responsible advances in the medical use of adult stem cell research.”
Embryonic stem cell research often is presented in the media alongside adult stem cell research under the generic term “stem cell research,” but there is a difference.
A stem cell is a “blank” or unspecialized cell capable of becoming another more differentiated cell type in the body such as a skin cell, muscle cell, or nerve cell. Scientists study these cells with the purpose of finding cures or treatments for a number of debilitating diseases.
Stem cells are present in adult tissues and organ systems including bone marrow, liver, skin, retina, skeletal muscle, intestine, brain, dental pulp — even fat extracted from liposuction.
Adult stem cells in the brain can be obtained up to 20 hours after a person’s death, according to a report prepared by the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (PCC). Stem cells obtained from umbilical cords, placenta and amniotic fluid also fall into the category of “adult stem cells.”
More than 50 diseases and conditions have already been treated successfully in humans using adult and umbilical cord stem cells, including leukemia, juvenile diabetes, spinal cord injury, immune deficiency and corneal damage, the PCC report notes.
Conversely, embryonic stem cells are extracted from a living embryo which is destroyed in the process. The extracted cells are then cultivated in a laboratory and replicated over and over again into what are called embryonic stem cell lines. The hope is that researchers would be able to find a way of using these lines to produce other types of cells that would treat a number of degenerative diseases.
The U.S. Bishops note, however, that currently no cures or treatments have been found using embryonic stem cells.
“Even the National Institutes of Health, which advocates for fewer restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, admits there are many obstacles to overcome for embryonic stem cells to be able to be used in an actual cure or treatment,” said Father Michael Spitzer, a moral theologian at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Wynnewood.
“They are not close. There is a perception that exists that we are right around the corner from miracle cures using embryonic stem cells. In contrast, there actually have been and continue to be lots of cures and treatments using adult stem cells,” said Father Spitzer.
The underlying issue
Nonetheless, the problem with embryonic stem cell research is not the lack of progress made, but that “a human being is sacrificed explicitly for getting that stem line,” Father Pacholczyk said.
“The false assumption that a good end can justify direct killing has been the source of much evil in the world,” the Bishops note in their statement. “No commitment to a hoped-for ‘greater good’ can erase or diminish the wrong of directly taking innocent human lives here and now. In fact, policies undermining our respect for human life can only endanger the vulnerable patients that stem cell research offers to help.
“The same ethic that justifies taking some lives to help the patient with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease today can be used to sacrifice that very patient tomorrow.”
Father Spitzer explains that Christians reject such a utilitarian philosophy because “we recognize that this life is a temporary life — that the fullness of life exists in the next world.”
He also points out that Christians believe in redemptive suffering, meaning that when suffering is accepted and offered up in union with the Passion of Jesus, it can remit the just punishment for one’s sins or for the sins of another.
“Even though it is difficult to lose a loved one to a debilitating disease or death, whether it is an adult or a child, we also have to retain that sense of Christian hope,” Father Spitzer said. “We are buoyed in the midst of darkness by the fact that Jesus has redeemed the world from evil and suffering, even though we have to be subject to it in this life. The fulfillment that we await is not an earthly fulfillment, it is supernatural eternal fulfillment.”
The Bishops note that, “just as each of us was once an adolescent, a child, a newborn infant, and a child within the womb, each of us was once an embryo,” the U.S. Bishops’ statement noted. “As a matter of biological fact, this new living organism has the full complement of human genes and is actively expressing those genes to live and develop in a way that is unique to human beings, setting the essential foundation for further development.
“Though dependent in many ways, the embryo is a complete and distinct member of the species Homo sapiens, who develops toward maturity by directing his or her own integrated organic functioning.”
Further, the Bishops noted that although some acknowledge this fact, they still contend that “life at this earliest stage is too weak or undeveloped, too lacking in mental or physical abilities, to have full human worth or human rights.”
Claiming that human rights depend on such factors “is to deny that human beings have human dignity, that we have inherent value simply by being members of the human family,” the statement continued. “If fundamental rights such as the right to life are based on abilities or qualities that can appear or disappear, grow or diminish, and be greater or lesser in different human beings, then there are no inherent human rights, no true human equality, only privileges for the strong.”
Catholic leadership on the debate
The Bishops’ statement has been received with enthusiasm by many advocating for a moral and ethical voice in stem cell research.
“The statement is a way of saying the Catholic Church is in this debate for the long haul,” Doerflinger said. “We’ve had many past statements, letters to congress, [and] testimonies, but this is an opportunity for all Bishops to say this is a high priority as a moral issue for the Church and something Catholics should educate themselves about. It is an issue that will probably continue for many years to come.”
Francis Viglietta, director of social concerns for the PCC, added that “there is a battle of hearts and minds that is taking place all across the county about whether to use embryonic stem cells for treating people.”
The U.S. Bishops’ statement urges “all Catholics and people of good will to join us in reaffirming, precisely in this context of embryonic stem cell research, that ‘the killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act.’”
CS&T staff writer Nadia Maria Smith may be reached at npozo@adphila.org or (215) 965-4614.