Why the Stem Cell Stakes are so High

Charles W. Colson and Nigel M. de S. Cameron

How quickly we forget! When President Bush used his first televised speech to the American people (on August 9, 2001) to lay out his policy on the funding of stem cell research, much of the press coverage was focused on those conservatives who condemned it as a sell-out. Now we are being told that conservatives are peeling off and demanding that he liberalize the policy!

What’s really at stake here, for science policy, human dignity, and the future prospects of our biotechnology industry? The policy is a compromise, but a principled compromise. We supported it then, and we applaud the backbone of the administration in sustaining it now. It stands as a beacon of sanity in an increasingly frenzied debate that does not augur well for the capacity of our democracy to cope with the challenges of what has been called the “biotech century.” Just look at what the other side has been doing; and what they really want.

First: They want to clone embryos. They are not really interested in a few more cell lines, or access to so-called “spare” embryos in in vitro clinic freezers. These make good debating points, but they are peripheral to their main aims. So-called “therapeutic cloning,” which has proved so powerful in the public imagination, requires the manufacture and destruction of millions upon millions of embryos, each one of which requires an egg from the ovary of a woman. What few Americans realize is that around the world nation after nation has outlawed this unethical research. Germany, Australia, Canada, and Norway have all decided to turn “therapeutic cloners” into felons; France is expected to follow suit in a few weeks.

Second: They want to patent embryos. One of the least-reported stories in this congress was the effort launched by pro-cloning campaigners to assert their right to the ownership of embryos that had been altered or engineered. Both BIO, the biotech industry trade group, and the so-called “campaign for medical research,” went on the offensive last fall in response to an effort to ensure that embryo patents would not be granted. They claimed that this would prevent “cures.” They were defeated, but they are expected to try again.

Third: They want to grow cloned embryos, implant them, and harvest the developing fetus for experiments and spare parts. This horrific scenario would have been thought unbelievable before New Jersey passed its “stem cell research” act and it was signed into law by Governor McGreevey earlier this year. It permits cloning for experimental purposes all the way through to birth. And the Biotechnology Industry Organization – to its everlasting shame - testified and lobbied in favor of what is plainly the worst biotech law in the world.

Fourth: They want vast public funding to subsidize their industry by taking the risks of speculative research onto the shoulders of tax payers. If someone had suggested a year ago that cash-strapped California would be asked to amend the state constitution to siphon $6 billion (yes, billion; that is not a typo) into the biotech industry and its university affiliates people would have laughed. But millions have already been spent to get the signatures needed, and perhaps the most bizarre proposition in American history will be on the November ballot.

Fifth: They want to play with the English language to try and shape the terms of the debate. In a manner that has deeply troubling implications for the health of democracy, there has been a series of efforts at changing the meaning of plain words to deceive the public. So, for example, in S. 303 – the Senate bill proposed by Senators Hatch (R-UT) and Feinstein (D-CA) to protect embryo research cloning – the word cloning is defined in a wholly novel way, to refer to the implantation of the embryo. (In the New Jersey law, cloning is defined as birth!) Yet S. 303 denies that the clonal embryo is an embryo at all, and makes up a new term for it: an “unfertilized blastocyst.” Without honest language, democracy is dead.

This controversy was set in motion by the cloning of a sheep in far-away Scotland back in 1996. Perhaps another Scot, Adam Smith, the founder of market economics, should have the last word. A stubborn fact that the frenzied pro-cloners have carefully sidestepped is this: why, if “therapeutic cloning” has such amazing promise, is no-one pumping private dollars into it? Where are the big pharmaceutical companies? Where are the venture capitalists? Where are the IPOs? It isn’t that they are scared off by long-term investments, and even if the returns of cloning for stem cells lie years ahead investors know all about calculating risk in the market. Vast sums are being invested in many aspects of biotech. But “therapeutic cloning” would seem to be priceless. Literally. It has no value in the market. That is the bucket of cold water that Adam Smith would throw over the hype which is feeding the flames of the debate.

Biotechnology offers amazing prospects for fighting disease, and – as President Bush told the conference of the Biotechnology Industry Organization – its scientists are called to a moral calling. Its CEOs and investors hold in their hands unimaginable prospects for the human good, and most of them have no interest in unethical research, despite BIO’s provocative claims. As one venture capitalist put it recently, his partnership does not invest in porn or destructive embryo research. Nor should the federal government.

Charles Colson is founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship. Nigel Cameron directs its affiliate, the Council for Biotechnology Policy. Their book Human Dignity in the Biotech Century is due out in July.