Attempt to Repeal SD Embryonic Stem Cell Research Ban Involves More Deception
Diagram of organ regeneration from ADULT stem cells (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
A bill has been introduced in the South Dakota legislature to repeal the state ban on embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). We knew this was coming because a few months ago a group led by David Volk announced they were planning to seek a repeal either through a petition effort or through the legislature. In fact, this is something that is beginning to take place in several states across the country.
On January 21, SB 74 was introduced in the South Dakota Senate. Of course, it makes no mention of embryonic stem cell research or a different, non-destructive type of stem cell research called adult stem cell research; it lumps “stem cell research” into one disingenuous lump.
The Rapid City Journal features an opinion piece today from Volk, arguing for passage of the bill. Volk makes the typical emotional appeal about suffering people who could be cured, if only the public would get over it’s archaic value of forms of human life that others don’t consider worthy of protection.
Putting aside for a moment some very real practical problems with embryonic stem cell research (such as problems with tissue rejection and with tumor generation in the recipient), and the benefit of the newly discovered ability to program adult stem cells to act like embryonic ones, Volk tells some real whoppers in this opinion piece, such as:
Embryonic stem cell research holds great promise because of these cells’ ability to develop into any type of tissue. Other research methods, such as adult stem cell research, are more limited.
Great promise? There has not been a single successful medical therapy derived from ESCR, not in all the years of research conducted in America and around the world, both privately funded and at taxpayer expense.
Meanwhile adult stem cell therapy (which can be obtained from a person’s own nasal tissue, dental tissue, or in many other places in the body) can make cells develop into other types of tissue and has already produced more than 70 successful therapies that have already helped many people with their ailments. These successful therapies include maladies such as brain injury, stroke, retina regeneration, heart tissue regeneration, angina, diabetes, bone cancer, nerve regeneration, cerebral palsy, cartilage regeneration, Parkinsons, kidney damage, liver cancer, lupus, multiple sclerosis, leukemia and many others. Just a few months ago, adult stem cells were used to regenerate facial bone tissue in a boy was born with a genetic defect that caused the absence of some facial bone.
I had the privilege a couple of years ago of meeting a person whose life was saved by adult stem cell therapy, Carol Franz. Carol’s testimony is amazing, having come back from death’s doorstep to live a vital, energetic life–without having to destroy another human life to do it.
It is pretty obvious which form of stem cell research is promising…and it isn’t embryonic stem cell research.
But Volk is just getting warmed up on the whoppers. He also says some people are unnecessarily concerned that a repeal of the ban will lead to cloning or abortion because neither will happen. This is patently false.
The process of cloning of human embryos is used to create more test subjects on which to experiment. It is a key part of embryonic stem cell research methodology.
Dr. David Prentice spoke in Rapid City a couple of months ago about stem cell research and cloning. Prentice has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Kansas and spent almost 20 years as Professor of Life Sciences, Indiana State University, and Adjunct Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Indiana University School of Medicine. He is also an internationally-recognized expert on stem cells and cloning, and has testified before the U.S. Congress, numerous state legislatures, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the President’s Council on Bioethics, European Parliament, British Parliament, Canadian Parliament, Australian Parliament, German Bundestag, French Senate, Swedish Parliament, the Vatican, and the United Nations.
This is an excerpt of an article I wrote from Dr. Prentice’s presentation in November:
Dr. James Thompson of the University of Wisconsin, who was the first to make a breakthrough with ESC, says scientists have overestimated the prospects for transplantation cures using embryonic stem cells.
Prentice said human cloning isn’t what we think of from the movies. Cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer–SCNT) is a process of obtaining a human embryo. A somatic cell is taken from the body, the nucleus is removed, then transferred into an empty egg to produce a single-celled embryo. This human clone can then be put into the womb of a mother.
Therapeutic cloning–as opposed to reproductive cloning–is done the same way, only the cloned human being is used for research.
When an MSNBC interviewer in 2005 tried to distinguish between human cloning for reproduction and human cloning for research, Dr. Thompson said: “See, you’re trying to define it away, and it doesn’t work. If you create an embryo by nuclear transfer, and you give it to somebody who didn’t know where it came from, there would be no test you could do on that embryo to say where it came from. It is what it is. It’s true that they have a much lower probability of giving rise to a child. … But by any reasonable definition, at least at some frequency, you’re creating an embryo. If you try to define it away, you’re being disingenuous.”
The language of South Dakota’s current law bans any human cloning. However, some other states define “human cloning” as involving implantation in a uterus…which–short of that–would open the door for and allow human cloning for research purposes, i.e. ESCR, so long as it was not implanted in a uterus.
Because ESC harvesting is very inefficient, it would take approximately 100 human eggs per patient to hope to cure any diseases. This would require massive egg donation by women to be used for research.
There are dangers associated with egg donation including increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. A female Stanford student named Calla Papademas is one such woman who found out about such risks after the fact.
Yes, there is indeed cloning involved in ESCR, as is abortion.
You see, embryonic stem cells cannot be successfully harvested from a human embryo without destroying that human embryo. When we destroy a pre-born human being, that is what we commonly call “an abortion.” While most abortions occur around eight weeks development (after the unborn child has an actual heartbeat), abortions can occur at any stage before a human being is actually born, from chemically-induced abortions at very early stages (the “morning after” pill, Plan B, etc.) all the way up to the ninth month. Yes, embryonic stem cell research is abortion.
But it seems Volk has some “magic dust” which he believes can change all this. You see, if you just call it something else, then the magic dust can actually make it become something else. Volk’s magic dust can be sprinkled on what we otherwise know as human life, and magically transform it into inanimate material we sometimes call an embryo, a blastocyst, or a zygote, or simply medical material (rather like the baby we want to abort becomes a “product of conception“) . Calling human beings by these dispassionate, clinical terms makes it infinitely more palatable to kill them and use them for experiments, doesn’t it?
But from conception, human embryos contain unique DNA that distinguishes them from every other human being on earth. They are not a part of their mother or father with which their mother or father can do as they please; they are a separate, distinct and unique human being. Incidentally, a human embryo is incapable of giving his or her consent to have genetic material removed, just as an unconscious person cannot give consent for their body to be used for medical experiments.
From conception, human embryos contain all the genetic information they will ever need for the rest of their life. They don’t get more genetic information at 2 weeks, 8 weeks, 6 months or even at birth; they are genetically complete from conception. So does the difference in development change their humanity?
A toddler is lacking in development, as is any child. Does that mean a child is less human than an adult? Does this mean a 2-year old is entitled to less protection than a 20-year old? Since an infant is lacking in development, does that mean we can experiment on it as we see fit? Well, the human child has all it’s body parts, you might say.
If lack of development or lack of physical completion is the standard that separates a human being from experimental raw material, then we have lots of raw material available. There are countless people–excuse me, test subjects–who were born without limbs or who lost their limbs due to accidents. Since, because of their incompleteness, they can no longer be considered “human beings” like these human embryos, think of all the medical advances we can make, now that we have so much more raw material.
Volk and others sometimes make the argument that these are just “leftover” human embryos that one might say are “discarded” and “no longer wanted” by the parents that made them. This is because they look hungrily at “leftover” human embryos at fertility clinics to use for medical experiments.
Well, then, if that’s the case, we have a huge store of medical material on which we can do medical experiments. There are millions of children, here in America and around the world, who have been orphaned and are no longer wanted by the people who created them. Let’s use these babies, toddlers, preschoolers and adolescents for medical experiments. Think of the medical advances that we can make now that we have test subjects and experimental material from so many new developmental stages.
Hmmm. Maybe that “magic dust” doesn’t work so well after all. In fact, it only works in the mind of those who are desperate to excuse the inexcusable, to justify the destruction of innocent human life.
In the real world, we call that “magic dust” deception, and we call destroying a human embryo for medical experiments morally indefensible.
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