Source : Pro Life Campaign
There are three billion reasons not to allow the Supreme Court ruling in R v. R to be used as a cover to legalise research here involving human embryo destruction.
In 2004, Californian taxpayers agreed to fund embryo stem cell research to the tune of $3 billion in the hope of finding cures for chronic diseases and disabilities. But since then, not a single breakthrough has taken place.
Now the Los Angeles-based Investor’s Business Daily magazine is reporting that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine set up to administer the $3b has started diverting the funds earmarked for embryo research into the ethically non-controversial adult stem cell research.
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in Ireland stripping Constitutional protection from human embryos in vitro, the latest developments from California take on a significant added meaning. With her experience in other ministries, Minister Harney is in a position to appreciate the economic as well as the medical knock-on effects of making Ireland an international centre of excellence for the ethically non-controversial adult stem cell research.
Minister For Health Mary Harney may well try to rush through a regulatory framework allowing embryo destruction to meet the interests of the IVF and embryo research industries. She is on record as saying she has asked her officials to prepare heads of legislation and it is expected the proposed legislation will follow the recommendations of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction’s 2005 Report. The membership of this Commission was outrageously biased in favour of allowing embryo destruction – they voted 24 to 1 for it, only Professor Gerard Whyte of TCD dissenting, click here to see his closely reasoned dissent.
Clearly the recommendations of such a biased body are not a fitting basis for legislation in a democracy, all the more so when such run contrary to the balance of opinion among the general public, measured time and again in professionally carried out opinion polls every year since the biased Report was issued, which have found a majority of around 70% support the Dáil passing legislation protecting embryos against destruction in clinics and laboratories.
But Minister Mary Harney may also defend legislation allowing the destruction of human embryos in vitro on the grounds that embryo destruction is needed to provide embryonic stem cells for research to produce new medical treatments.
This argument, however, has turned out to be as flawed as an appeal to the biased Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction Report. For years we have been bombarded by propaganda saying killing human embryos has to be allowed so research using stem cells got by that way may lead to new medical treatments. But now we are finding out this simply ain’t so. It’s been all promise, but no product.
In 2004 California approved Proposition 71, a ballot measure allowing the State to borrow US $3 billion to fund stem cell research using stem cells obtained by destroying human embryos. The money was to be used, its proponents said, to develop new treatments based on embryonic stem cell research. The State agency set up to manage this was the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
On 12th January this year, the Los Angeles-based Investor’s Business Daily magazine reported that because the research using stem cells obtained by killing human embryos has not produced any breakthroughs in medical treatments, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine ‘is diverting funds’ to the research approach that ‘has produced actual therapies and treatments : adult stem cell research.’
Adult stem cell research, the Investor’s Business Daily comments, ‘not only has treated real people with real results it also does not come with the moral baggage embryonic stem cell research does.
It goes on to comment that advocates of embryonic stem cell research have engaged in a sort of three card trick:
To us this is a classic bait and switch, an attempt to snatch success from the jaws of failure and take credit for discoveries and advances achieved by research (which) Proposition 71 supporters once cavalierly dismissed. We have noted how over the years that when funding was needed, the phrase “embryonic stem cells” was used. When actual progress was discussed, the word “embryonic” was dropped because embryonic stem cell research never got out of the lab. Click here to read the Investor's Business Daily article in full.
So if Minister Mary Harney or the voices of the IVF and embryo research industries in Ireland start arguing that we need a regulatory framework allowing embryo destruction in order to open the door for research promising breakthroughs in medical treatment, the answer is we already know what lies down that path. California three US $ 3 billion at it and there were no results and now the agency set up to get results is diverting the money into adult stem cell research so it will have some results to show.
The real message of the Californian experience, then is that Ireland has a golden opportunity to put substantial resources into adult stem cell research to make Ireland an international centre of excellence in this field of research which is actually producing the goods.
Showing posts with label Mary Harney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary Harney. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Ireland and Stem Cell Research - Killing of embryos in human stem-cell research is wrong
Thu, Jan 21, 2010
The Irish Supreme Court recently judged that frozen human embryos are not among the “unborn” referred to in the Constitution, which binds the State to protect and defend the right to life of the unborn. The judges also called on the Oireachtas to introduce legislation to regulate assisted human reproduction and the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has promised to introduce a Bill later this year, writes WILLIAM REVILLE
Advocates of human embryonic stem-cell research (HESCR) hope that these developments will soon give the green light to start up such research in this country. I am opposed to HESCR, primarily on ethical grounds and secondarily on practical grounds.
Biology shows that human life begins at conception when sperm and egg unite to form an embryo, thereby initiating a continuum of development that ends only in death. Science does not deal in ethics and cannot place a moral value on human life at any stage along the continuum. Many scientists believe, myself included, that human life has full moral value from the moment of conception, or at least sufficient moral value that it should not be deliberately destroyed. Many other scientists, probably a majority, believe that full moral value is only reached later along the continuum – at implantation in the womb or later. As the human embryo must be killed to obtain embryonic stem cells, I am opposed to HESCR.
Dr James Thomson, who discovered how to isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998, has said: “If human embryonic stem-cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, then you have not thought about it enough.”
This “yuk factor” associated with killing embryos affects most people and I believe that we should not override this deep-seated intuition. In his book, The Future of Human Nature , German philosopher Jurgen Habermas says: “There is a long-established, widely shared, deep moral intuition that human embryos are not just cells like any other cells, as some argue, and we breach that moral intuition at our peril.” The deliberate killing of human embryos harms the respect for human life that we intuitively form around our coming into existence and may encourage a more general erosion of respect for life.
But people point to “surplus” human embryos left over from IVF procedures and ask why not use them for useful HESCR as they are destined to die anyway? Well, we are all destined to die, but this gives nobody the right to kill us prematurely and use our bodies for research. Also, “surplus” IVF embryos never asked to be created – they are an unfortunate by-product of IVF procedures. IVF techniques should be developed that do not generate “surplus” embryos and the embryos that already exist should be either adopted or allowed to die with dignity.
HESCR is primarily justified on the basis that it will cure many human diseases and therefore the benefit of the research greatly outweighs the harm done to embryos – the utilitarian ethic often expressed as “the end justifies the means”. Many scientists who carry out HESCR are intuitively repulsed by the idea of deliberately killing human embryos but override this feeling with the aid of the utilitarian ethic. On the other hand, principles-based ethics prioritises respect for human life and concludes that the hoped-for benefits must be sought in other ways that are ethical. Which brings me to the practical reason I oppose HESCR: we have very good alternative and ethical stem-cell approaches to curing disease – adult stem-cell research and induced pluripotent stem-cell research (IPSCR).
Adult stem cells can be prepared from umbilical-cord blood and from adult tissues. By and large, no ethical problems attend adult stem-cell research, which is forging ahead worldwide. Adult stem cells are much easier to control than embryonic stem cells and such research has produced more than 200 medical treatments. In contrast, no treatments are yet available from HESCR and it would be premature to expect any within 10 years.
Induced pluripotent stem cells, made by reprogramming ordinary adult body cells, eg skin cells, so that they change into stem cells, are the latest development in stem-cell research. Most indications are that such induced stem cells have as much potential in medicine as embryonic stem cells. By and large, IPSCR can be carried out without ethical problems.
Annual surveys of Irish public opinion carried out by Millward Brown IMS since 2005 show that the great majority of people want protection for embryonic humans enshrined in law. In the latest poll, 71 per cent of those who declared an opinion expressed a desire for legal protection for the embryo and 29 per cent saw no need for such protection ( Irish Times , May 15th, 2009).
William Reville is University College Cork’s associate professor of biochemistry and its public awareness of science officer – http://understandingscience.ucc.ie
© 2010 The Irish Times
The Irish Supreme Court recently judged that frozen human embryos are not among the “unborn” referred to in the Constitution, which binds the State to protect and defend the right to life of the unborn. The judges also called on the Oireachtas to introduce legislation to regulate assisted human reproduction and the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has promised to introduce a Bill later this year, writes WILLIAM REVILLE
Advocates of human embryonic stem-cell research (HESCR) hope that these developments will soon give the green light to start up such research in this country. I am opposed to HESCR, primarily on ethical grounds and secondarily on practical grounds.
Biology shows that human life begins at conception when sperm and egg unite to form an embryo, thereby initiating a continuum of development that ends only in death. Science does not deal in ethics and cannot place a moral value on human life at any stage along the continuum. Many scientists believe, myself included, that human life has full moral value from the moment of conception, or at least sufficient moral value that it should not be deliberately destroyed. Many other scientists, probably a majority, believe that full moral value is only reached later along the continuum – at implantation in the womb or later. As the human embryo must be killed to obtain embryonic stem cells, I am opposed to HESCR.
Dr James Thomson, who discovered how to isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998, has said: “If human embryonic stem-cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, then you have not thought about it enough.”
This “yuk factor” associated with killing embryos affects most people and I believe that we should not override this deep-seated intuition. In his book, The Future of Human Nature , German philosopher Jurgen Habermas says: “There is a long-established, widely shared, deep moral intuition that human embryos are not just cells like any other cells, as some argue, and we breach that moral intuition at our peril.” The deliberate killing of human embryos harms the respect for human life that we intuitively form around our coming into existence and may encourage a more general erosion of respect for life.
But people point to “surplus” human embryos left over from IVF procedures and ask why not use them for useful HESCR as they are destined to die anyway? Well, we are all destined to die, but this gives nobody the right to kill us prematurely and use our bodies for research. Also, “surplus” IVF embryos never asked to be created – they are an unfortunate by-product of IVF procedures. IVF techniques should be developed that do not generate “surplus” embryos and the embryos that already exist should be either adopted or allowed to die with dignity.
HESCR is primarily justified on the basis that it will cure many human diseases and therefore the benefit of the research greatly outweighs the harm done to embryos – the utilitarian ethic often expressed as “the end justifies the means”. Many scientists who carry out HESCR are intuitively repulsed by the idea of deliberately killing human embryos but override this feeling with the aid of the utilitarian ethic. On the other hand, principles-based ethics prioritises respect for human life and concludes that the hoped-for benefits must be sought in other ways that are ethical. Which brings me to the practical reason I oppose HESCR: we have very good alternative and ethical stem-cell approaches to curing disease – adult stem-cell research and induced pluripotent stem-cell research (IPSCR).
Adult stem cells can be prepared from umbilical-cord blood and from adult tissues. By and large, no ethical problems attend adult stem-cell research, which is forging ahead worldwide. Adult stem cells are much easier to control than embryonic stem cells and such research has produced more than 200 medical treatments. In contrast, no treatments are yet available from HESCR and it would be premature to expect any within 10 years.
Induced pluripotent stem cells, made by reprogramming ordinary adult body cells, eg skin cells, so that they change into stem cells, are the latest development in stem-cell research. Most indications are that such induced stem cells have as much potential in medicine as embryonic stem cells. By and large, IPSCR can be carried out without ethical problems.
Annual surveys of Irish public opinion carried out by Millward Brown IMS since 2005 show that the great majority of people want protection for embryonic humans enshrined in law. In the latest poll, 71 per cent of those who declared an opinion expressed a desire for legal protection for the embryo and 29 per cent saw no need for such protection ( Irish Times , May 15th, 2009).
William Reville is University College Cork’s associate professor of biochemistry and its public awareness of science officer – http://understandingscience.ucc.ie
© 2010 The Irish Times
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
