Hard Cell: The Push To Experiment On Human Embryos.

Sen. Tom Harkin wanted to sound sophisticated at a hearing on the complicated subject of embryonic-cell research last December. "It is my belief and my opinion, based upon a lot of study of this, that [stem cells] do not fall under the ban on human-embryo research," declared the Iowa Democrat. Then he read the law aloud, including the part that defines embryos as organisms derived from human diploid cells. "I don't even know what that is," he announced.

A seventh-grade biology textbook might have come in handy. Diploid cells are those that contain complete sets of chromosome pairs. In other words, all cells are diploid cells except for eggs and sperm. But Harkin wasn't interested in the details. Neither were his scientific allies at the witness table. A powerful coalition including the Clinton administration and pro-abortion groups, as well as biotechnology companies, universities, and patient-advocacy outfits, are determined to railroad right-to-lifers on an emerging and bitterly contested moral issue.

The stakes for both sides are high. With the partial-birth-abortion fight essentially lost-Congress remains unable to override a presidential veto, the initiative process hasn't worked, and the courts have repeatedly struck down state laws banning the practice-pro-lifers now identify embryo research as a top legislative priority. But they are pitted against interests that stand to win millions of dollars in federal funding-and potentially make many millions more if firms bring products based on this research to the marketplace.

The debate slipped into overdrive last November, when scientists announced that they had isolated human embryonic stem cells, primitive cells that, like the stem of a plant, can grow into any part of the human body. Adults carry stem cells, but they are not as versatile as the ones found in embryos. If nudged the right way, embryonic stem cells can grow into a wide variety of healthy tissues and organs, which can then be transplanted into people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, heart conditions-anything in which degenerative cells play a role.

Clinical applications are still years away, but stem-cell research holds almost limitless promise. Lifespans could increase by decades. William Haseltine, head of Human Genome Sciences, a private firm in Maryland, even told the Washington Post, "This is the first time we can conceive human immortality." There's only one problem: Embryonic-stem-cell research kills living embryos. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University performed experiments on aborted fetuses seven to nine weeks old. The University of Wisconsin's James Thomson obtained unwanted embryos from in vitro fertilization banks. He destroyed 36 of them to produce five cultures of living tissue. Michael West of Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts company, harvested stem cells by creating and then killing embryos.

Federal dollars didn't pay for their work. In 1996, Congress banned funding for destructive embryo research. But shortly after Gearhart, Thomson, and West went public, the push began to circumvent the law. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is pro-choice, convened a series of hearings to trumpet the findings. Scientists and biotechnology companies urged taxpayer support. The American Association of Medical Colleges rallied dozens of patients-rights groups, ranging from the American Lung Association to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

Meanwhile, the Clinton administration went to work. The law is pretty clear: The federal government can't pay for killing human embryos. So supporters of the research got clever. What if somebody not funded by the government did the killing, and then sent the stem cells to researchers who take taxpayer dollars? In December, Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, asked for a legal opinion from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The department's lawyers reported back in a January 15 memo. Funding embryonic- stem-cell research is permissible because stem cells are not embryos, wrote general counsel Harriet S. Rabb, formerly a board member of the New York Civil Liberties Union. For her analysis, Rabb leaned on deputy counsel Marcy Wilder, who worked as a National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League lobbyist before joining HHS two years ago. The Rabb-Wilder memo essentially argued that NIH researchers can't actually kill the embryos-at least not while they're on government time-but are allowed to work on embryo parts.

The legal logic isn't compelling, because the congressional ban is broad, forbidding funding for "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." The moral logic doesn't make much sense either. "It's like saying you won't pay to have someone kill me, but will experiment on my heart right after watching someone else rip it out of my body," says Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Either way I'm dead." In February, 70 House members and seven senators wrote to HHS secretary Donna Shalala to protest her lawyers' administrative nullification of federal law. Even Sen. Specter sensed the HHS memo's weakness. "We are in very deep water," he admitted to the New York Times.

The Rabb-Wilder memo nevertheless provided enough cover. Varmus eagerly announced that NIH would begin funding the controversial research, and Shalala brushed off congressional objections. NIH is expected to issue research- application guidelines by summer.

Abortion-rights advocates can't wait for NIH to turn on the funding spigot, because destructive embryo research destigmatizes abortion. Just imagine an abortion counselor telling a young woman that ending her pregnancy will help scientists improve another person's life. And pro-abortion advocates relish the sight of pro-lifers arguing against the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Biotechnology companies with short-term capitalization, meanwhile, are looking for quick returns on their investments, and government-sponsored stem-cell research aids them enormously. Because their work will create a caste of human embryos living and dying in labs for the purpose of tissue and organ donation, they also want the implied social seal of approval that government funding affords. Universities too are always eager for new sources of revenue.

Eventually advances in biotechnology could make embryonic research unnecessary. "There are no fundamental barriers to achieving pluripotent stem cells from adults," says John Fagan, a molecular biologist who heads Genetic ID, an Iowa- based company. In other words, stem cells harvested from adults may be reprogrammed in ways that give them the medical versatility of embryonic stem cells. On March 4, researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Center in Pasadena, Calif., said that they had grown stem cells from living nerve tissue. And in January, a team of Canadian and Italian scientists working on mice announced that they were able to transform neural stem cells into blood-making bone-marrow stem cells-a process that in theory should work in human beings.

But it will take a few years for these innovations to mature, and only a pro- life minority seems willing to wait. "These are very debatable issues," says Ronald Eastman, CEO of Geron, a California-based company that funded the Johns Hopkins and Wisconsin experiments. "But the benefits far outweigh the concerns." Last December, Arlen Specter wondered whether embryonic-stem-cell research would create "a realistic fountain of youth." His allies are ready to find out, even if it means bankrolling a culture of death.