Embryonic stem cells: the end doesn't justify the means: Stem-cell research holds great promise for treating many diseases. But such promise, argues Jacqueline Lee, can never justify the destruction of human life in the process. (sounding board).

WATCHING SOMEONE YOU LOVE TURN TO stone before your eyes can definitely affect your perspective on the embryonic stem-cell research debate. In 1999, my mother was diagnosed with scleroderma, which literally means hard skin. For a person with this rate disease, the immune system, which is supposed to attack the pathogens that make us ill, turns instead on healthy body tissues. Symptoms may begin with tightening and thickening of the skin along with joint and muscle pain. Patients may then develop Raynaud's phenomenon, a condition in which the body's extremities change color in response to temperature. Others may develop calcinosis, white lumps beneath the skin that can erupt, leaving painful ulcers.

My mother's first symptom was shortness of breath. The disease viciously attacked her lungs and other internal organs, and she died of respiratory failure within seven months of her diagnosis. During that time, she lost the ability to get up from a sitting position without assistance. She lost 50 pounds because she could not eat anything without vomiting. She lost her ability to breathe. In the end, instead of praying for her recovery, I began to pray that she would be released from her struggle with the disease. As soon as she died, I begged God for the chance to take that prayer back.

According to research presented last year by University of Florida professor of medicine John R. Wingard, stem-cell transplants show remarkable promise in treating not only scleroderma but also other autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and lupus. Essentially, stem cells are the body's "master cells." They can differentiate into other types of cells, from brain cells to skin cells. Feasibly, stem cells might be injected into the nervous system to replace tissues damaged by strokes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or spinal cord injuries.

I am excited about the potential of stem-cell therapies, but recent demands that the federal government fund research on embryonic stem cells frighten me. Extracting stem cells from embryos proves contentious, of course, because embryos must be destroyed in order to obtain the cells.

SUPPORTERS OF EMBRYONIC STEM-CELL RESEARCH CITE TWO main advantages of embryonic stem cells--both of them, ultimately, economic. According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cells from embryos, so-called "pluripotent" cells, are more flexible than adult stem cells and can thus be manipulated into more types of body tissues, including bone, skin, and muscle. Those who support federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research claim that pluripotent cells are more useful than adult stem cells because they possess these remarkable powers of transformation. In addition, scientists can generate an unlimited number of embryonic stem cells in the laboratory. Because adult cells are more difficult to obtain, embryos would be a more cost-effective source of cells.

"We are now witnessing the gradual restructuring of American culture according to ideals of utility, productivity, and cost-effectiveness," wrote the U.S. Catholic bishops in Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics. "It is a culture where moral questions are submerged by a river of goods and services."

But opponents of embryonic research, ironically, are able to cite the economic argument, too. According to a recent article by Scott Gottlieb in the American Spectator, investors of venture capital currently fund adult stem-cell research much more frequently than they fund embryonic research. Why? Embryonic cells have never been used in humans, but adult cells have.

Opponents also note that embryonic cells can, at times, be too flexible. Gottlieb notes that the injection of pluripotent cells in mice, for instance, has caused the growth of tumors consisting of numerous body tissue types; the cells did not integrate themselves into damaged tissues as scientists hoped they would. Also, conceivably, a transplanted embryonic stem cell could be rejected by the recipient's body--much like the body tries to reject a transplanted organ. Adult stem cells, however, are more specialized and, because adult stem cells are harvested from the patient's own body, rejection is not a factor.

Apart from medical and economic arguments, we as Catholics must wade through the ambiguous moral arguments both for and against embryonic research. While many prolife Catholic organizations, including the National Catholic Bioethics Center, have staunchly opposed stem-cell research, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, a majority of Catholics surveyed--72 percent--support it.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a leading supporter of embryonic research, argues that "a frozen embryo in a refrigerator in a clinic" is not the same as "a fetus developing in a mother's womb." These frozen embryos, his supporters say, have the potential to develop into life--but the embryos themselves are not technically alive.

Many bioethicists, however, dismiss that argument as pointless rationalization. If all humans begin as embryos, how can embryos not be considered "alive"? Furthermore, if these embryos are alive, then extracting embryonic stem cells violates at least three principles of the Nuremberg Code, which lays out principles scientists must observe when conducting research on human subjects. First, scientists must always obtain the voluntary consent of every human research subject. Embryos, of course, cannot give their consent. Also, when scientists create embryos specifically for the purposes of experimentation, the embryos do not even have parents who can speak on their behalf.

Second, the Nuremberg Code states that human subjects should be protected "against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death." Third, the Nuremberg Code requires that experiments on human subjects must yield results "unprocurable by any other means of study."

IF EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS INVOLVING ADULT CELLS have already furnished promising results, why do we need embryonic cells? And if embryonic research violates the codes we have established to protect human dignity, how can we, as moral people, even consider carrying it out?

As Tommy Thompson, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services--and a prominent Catholic--observes, "There is nothing easy about this issue. It balances our respect for human life with our highest hopes for alleviating human suffering." True, pluripotent cells in and of themselves cannot develop into human beings. However, scientists cannot obtain pluripotent cells without destroying the four-day-old embryos from which they come. "As long as embryos are destroyed as part of the research enterprise," says the National Bioethics Advisory Council, "researchers using embryonic stem cells (and those who fund them) will be complicit in the death of embryos."

With his decision in August, President Bush has already authorized limited funding for research on existing stem-cell lines. But in the next session of Congress, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania plans to sponsor legislation that will fund research on embryos left over from in vitro fertilization attempts. Although many respect Bush's compromise, my own fear is that his willingness to allow a little funding has paved the way for steady relaxation of current restrictions.

ULTIMATELY, IT COMES DOWN TO THIS: CAN WE REALLY justify the willful destruction of human embryos by arguing that "the end justifies the means"? Is it acceptable to undermine the dignity of human life in the name of medical progress?

Perhaps many of us are looking at this issue through swollen eyes blurred by tears. We have all seen the suffering brought on by degenerative illness, either in ourselves or in someone we love. Our hearts ache for those who suffer, and we want to do anything by any means to stop it.

But, no matter how laudable that aim may be, it cannot justify the destruction of a developing human life. In the words of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, "Law and principles are not for times when there is no temptation: They are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?"

My heart ached for my mother, and today it aches for all those who suffer from disease and injury; but, no matter how deep my desire to ease that suffering may be, it cannot justify the destruction of a developing human life. I wish that my mother had been strong enough to undergo a stem-cell transplant. I would have done anything to save her.

Well, almost anything. I would not have been complicit in the destruction of human life, even if the destruction of that life could have saved hers. To me, a praiseworthy end could never have justified such a destructive means.

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By JACQUELINE LEE, a freelance writer living in Conway, Arizona.