“When we elect our lawmakers in America, we
influence the moral character of this nation for better or for worse. When our laws permit violence against little
babies, incidents like the Columbine High School shootings are the logical outcome
…”
Rev. Frank Pavone, National Priests
for Life
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The New Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism (Official Baltimore Catechism
Series No. 2) Revised Edition
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This Catechism retains the text of the Revised Baltimore Catechism,
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Intended for grades 6-8
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Stem Cell Research Still a Big Deal to Pro-Life Advocates
Washington, DC -- Reviving a debate over how society should treat
the earliest stages of human life, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is close to
auhorizing a plan to fund medical research that relies on the destruction of unborn
children.
The NIH plan, in the works for more than a year, would clear the way for the first public
funding of potentially ground-breaking research on embryo "stem cells," which
scientists first isolated only 21 months ago.
Under NIH's draft rules, scientists could obtain the cells from embryos created by couples
during fertility treatments but not used.
Lobbyists who follow the NIH's work say that the plan will be released by the end of
August, assuming it wins final approval from the Clinton administration, which so far has
been supportive.
But once it is released, the plan will face a host of political and legal uncertainties,
and it will raise difficult ethical issues that could reverberate through Congress and the
presidential election.
"This issue pits two very important moral considerations against each other: the
effort to cure disease and the effort to respect the sanctity of human life," said
Ronald Green, an ethics professor at Dartmouth College. "It's going to be a political
hot potato."
Pro-life advocates say that the research is immoral because unborn children are destroyed
in the course of culling their stem cells, sacrificing one form of human life to benefit
another. Pro-life Gov. George W. Bush (R-TX), the Republican presidential nominee, has
said through surrogates that he opposes the research. If elected president, he could block
the NIH plan with an executive order.
On the other hand, Gore favors the research despite its destruction of unborn human life.
The issue could land in Congress just before the fall elections. In the House, legislators
led by pro-life Rep. Jay Dickey (R-AR) say that the NIH plan violates a 1996 congressional
ban on federal funding for research in which embryos are destroyed. The NIH insists that
its plan is legal, but Dickey has vowed to block the agency, either through legislation or
in the courts.
"Dismembering [an embryo] is like dismembering a person ... pulling the legs and arms
and body parts off," Dickey said in an interview. "We don't think our country is
going to be better off having that sort of thing done with federal funds."
In the Senate, supporters of stem cell research plan to press for passage of legislation
that would give the NIH explicit authority to proceed. Lobbyists on both sides of the
issue say that the measure likely would win a majority, but not necessarily the 60 votes
needed to overcome procedural maneuvers that could block the bill.
If they take up the issue, legislators and candidates could find themselves on tricky
political terrain, a place where public views are nuanced and not always readily apparent.
Some people who might benefit from stem cell research say that it should nonetheless be
stopped.
A stem cell treatment "would be derived by evil means. I wouldn't accept it,"
said Mary Jane Owen, the 71-year-old director of a Catholic disabilities group, who is
blind and a victim of spinal cord injury. "My life is no more valuable than any other
human life on the planet ... and an embryo is human life."
Other groups support abortion on demand but are wary of destroying embryos during
research. They include the United Methodist Church, with 8.5 million members. Stem cell
research could be "a step toward the commercialization of human life," said
Jaydee Hanson, a social policy official of the church.
On the other hand, advocates of the research have won over several prominent legislators
who hold pro-life views. Among them are pro-life Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) who has said
that he backs stem cell research in part because it might help his daughter, who has
juvenile diabetes.
However, pro-life advocates are quick to point out to those who consider such research
"pro-life" that alternatives do exist and more should be explored that
accomplish the same goals without destroying unborn children.
In the stem cell debate, research advocates have worked to replace the image of the unborn
child in legislators' minds with the image of a patient, desperate for a cure. That effort
received a big boost when actors Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox, a Parkinson's
disease patient, agreed to lobby legislators.
The political environment has been made even more complex because of the NIH's own legal
position.
In 1996, pro-life legislators, led by Dickey, won a ban on federal funding for
"research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly
subjected to risk of injury or death." That was more than two years before scientists
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, using private funds, first isolated and cultured
stem cells from human embryos.
The Wisconsin work caused a sensation and Dr. Harold Varmus, then director of the NIH,
said that it could "revolutionize" medicine.
The NIH, the largest single financial backer of medical research in the United States,
said that the 1996 ban merely bars scientists from using federal money to derive stem
cells from embryos and that researchers can use tax dollars for experiments once the cells
have been harvested.
But even some advocates of the research say that reasoning is flawed. The National
Bioethics Advisory Commission, created by President Clinton, said that the NIH is
operating under a "mistaken notion" that scientists can use stem cells while
distancing themselves from how the cells are obtained.
The NIH legal reasoning also upsets pro-life groups, who said it is a clear evasion of the
law.
"If we had a law that barred research in which porpoises were killed, no one would
entertain for five seconds that a federal agency could arrange for someone else to kill
the porpoises and then proceed to use them in research," said Douglas Johnson,
legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.
This Page last updated: Tuesday, October 31, 2000
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