NO EMBRYO, NO PROBLEM:

Doc hatches stem cell compromise (ROBERT NOVAK, January 6, 2005, Chicago SUN-TIMES)

Since the Dec. 3 meeting of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, the struggle over embryonic stem cell research has been altered. Dr. Bill Hurlbut, a physician and Stanford biology professor, proposed a cloning-like procedure to harvest stem cells that would prevent even beginning the creation of a human organism or anything with human characteristics.

Hurlbut made the presentation to his colleagues as a "third option" in the "current conflict over the procurement of embryonic stem cells." He suggested it as "a technological solution to our moral impasse." Robbie George, the eminent Catholic layman and Princeton law professor, supports this line of inquiry. Only one council member opposed Hurlbut's proposal. [...]

In his presentation to the council, Hurlbut asserted the controversy over embryo destruction for the purpose of fighting disease "is unlikely to be resolved through deliberation or debate." He added, "A purely political solution will leave our country bitterly divided, eroding the social support and sense of noble purpose that is essential for the public funding of biomedical science."

To resolve "this apparently irresolvable impasse," Hurlbut said, "we believe there may be morally uncontroversial ways to obtain embryonic stem cells." He said entities "that lack the qualities and characteristics of an organism appear to be capable of generating embryonic stem cells or their functional equivalent."

The only clear criticism on the council came from Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatry department chairman at Johns Hopkins University. He warned that Hurlbut could be making a "hybrid which would be super-human in some kind of way." Hurlbut responded, "You create an entity that never rises to the level of what can properly be called a living being." McHugh suggested Hurlbut was making "a doomed hybrid" that would not be permitted to become a human being. "Not doomed," responded Hurlbut. "Only doomed if it's alive first."

Hurlbut, a conservative himself, was supported at the meeting by George's questions. He asked, "So you, yourself, would not want to see the proposal go forward unless it could be shown that in the human case, we would not be creating an embryo?" "Yeah," Hurlbut replied, "that would violate the very principle we're trying to defend." They agreed animal experimentation would come first.

Asked about Hurlbut's inquiry, Brownback took a wait-and-see approach on grounds that nobody knows enough about it. Brownback cited progress made in using non-embryonic stem cells.

Mr. McHugh's objection, that they wouldn't be human, would seem to be the very point in its favor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 6, 2005 10:29 AM