Sacred body? Stem cell research and human cloning

Ecumenical Review, The, July, 2002 by Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

Human stem cell research

Human embryonic stem cells have come more and more to be the "objects of desire" for scientists engaged in research in the field of medical genetics. Tremendous hopes are connected with these cells, which can be found in human embryos in their earliest stages of development. Doctors hope to find therapies for diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or multiple sclerosis, which have so far been incurable. The idea is that stem cells can be used as a "fire-brigade" in the human body. Where human cells degenerate and therefore lead to such diseases, stem cells could be injected into the body and help rejuvenate it by stimulating the growth of new, healthy cells.

Embryonic stem cells are so interesting for this task because they are not defined in their function. In the early stage of the embryo they are still "pluripotent"--that is, they can still develop into any kind of body tissue, be it brain tissue, heart tissue or kidney tissue. For lay observers, the development of an embryo from a conglomerate of a few cells into a more and more differentiated organism is a miracle. If scientists succeeded in exploiting this miracle by understanding the mechanisms which make embryonic cells develop into different types of tissue, they would have found the key to replacing any kind of defective tissue in the patient's body. New organs could even be grown--a prospect which would revolutionize medicine, since the lack of new organs is a major barrier in helping many patients who have a very short life expectancy.

If these new medical techniques can cure grave diseases, what is the ethical problem? At this stage, embryonic stem cells are not "totipotent" which means that these cells cannot each develop into an embryo any more. The ethical problem lies in the generation of these cells. They grow in the first few days after fertilization in the developing embryo. For researchers to isolate and use these stem cells, the embryo must die. Evidently, if the embryo is seen as a human being from the very beginning of its life, the ethical question arises whether it is legitimate to kill human life in order to gain stem cells, even if the goal is the cure of diseases.

Thus for the ethical assessment of human embryonic stem cell research a fundamental factor is how the early stages of human life are understood. If we look at the different national contexts in Europe, three levels of protection for life at these earliest stages can be identified. A first group of countries forbids any research with embryos and only allows treatments which enhance the prospect of life for the treated embryo. These countries are Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Italy and Germany. A second group of countries allows research with an embryo even if it does not serve this specific embryo; but such research must serve the development of medical methods for protecting embryos in general. That is, it has to serve the future well-being of embryos, for example in the case of artificial insemination. Denmark, France and Sweden are some of the countries that belong to this second group. A third group of countries allows research with embryos without the limitations mentioned above, as long as it occurs within the first 14 days after fertilization: Finland, Greece, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Spain are part of this third group. Given this heterogeneous picture it is not surprising that Europe's 1996 Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine does not categorically ban research with human embryos.