Research on stem cells culled from human embryos holds the potential to unlock cures for diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's that ravage many people's lives. For that reason, the Tribune has supported the use of federal funds for stem cell research.
But Sunday's disclosure that Massachusetts scientists have cloned human embryos in their privately funded search for stem cell cures is deeply disturbing. It suggests that, in the name of stem cell research, virtually anything goes.
If the Massachusetts development sounds not exactly familiar, there's a reason. Last July, scientists at a Virginia fertility clinic announced that they had broken a longstanding taboo and created human embryos for the sole purpose of producing stem cells for medical experiments. They did so by combining reproductive materials from men and women, essentially in the way fertility specialists create embryos for implantation in infertile women.
At the time, this page criticized the Virginia scientists for creating a nascent form of life with the sole purpose of exploiting it for stem cells and then destroying it. The same principle applies to the human embryos that more recently were developed by cloning in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts scientists, from a small biotech firm named Advanced Cell Technology, created early-stage human embryos by using techniques more complex than those of the Virginia researchers. Advanced Cell's stated goal is not to grow babies, but to get cloned embryos to develop enough to yield stem cells. Those might in turn yield tissue that would genetically match that of a human donor whose cell helped produce the cloned embryo.
In theory, a person needing a replacement for a diseased organ could donate cells and wind up with a new organ that his or her body wouldn't reject. The cloned embryos in Massachusetts did not live long enough to produce stem cells. But count on Advanced Cell to keep working on that.
Last summer, advocates of embryonic stem cell research argued that it was ethically acceptable to extract stem cells from embryos that had been created for in vitro fertilization, but which were never implanted and were destined to be discarded. The proponents made a good case that since those embryos originally had been intended to create life, it was acceptable to use them to try to develop treatments that could prolong or preserve the lives of diseased patients.
Many Americans told pollsters they thought embryonic stem cell research was morally improper, because the process of removing stem cells halts an early form of human life. Yet many Americans also said it was medically imperative to pursue the research. President Bush reflected similar ambivalence when, in August, he agreed to federal funding for stem cell research under limited conditions. The government does not fund human cloning experiments.
Bush opposes human cloning no matter who pays for it. Last July, the House voted to ban human cloning. The Senate has yet to act. Some members of Congress back a six-month moratorium on human cloning until they can study it.
It's not yet clear that cloning can produce an embryo that could be implanted in a woman and grow to infancy. That's another debate. What is clear is that Congress at the very least should declare off-limits the creation of human life forms purely for experimentation and destruction.