Dismember of Congress

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Orkin) was not too happy yesterday to see the House controlled by his party nonetheless endorse legislation supporting federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

The margin of the vote, 238-194, wasn't enough to override President Bush's threatened veto (which I'll believe when I see it -- it would be his first-ever presidential veto), but was still surprisingly broad considering that moderate Delaware Republican Mike Castle, the bill's main sponsor, doesn't even have a tough-guy nickname. Milquetoast Mike just whacked "The Hammer" by 44 votes.

The Chicago Sun-Times report includes the comment from DeLay that made me choke on my coffee this morning when I heard it on NPR:

Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said the embryonic research bill would force taxpayers to finance ''the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings.''

"Dismemberment"? In order to dismember something, doesn't it have to have, you know, members?

DeLay believes that human personhood begins at conception (or at least he believes that his political career depends on support from people who believe that), so it makes sense from his perspective to say, as he also did, that the use of embryonic stem cells would involve "killing some in the hopes of saving others." But it is nonsense to speak of the dismemberment" of embryos -- it is a physical and physiological impossibility.

It also shows that DeLay doesn't really understand the nature of the research he so adamantly opposes. This helpful explainer from religioustolerance.org points out that any embryo developed enough to have "members" -- or even individuated cells -- would be useless for such research:

In ESCR, it is a zygote which is killed in the process of extracting its stem cells, not an embryo or fetus. It is, at this point, a mass of individuated cells; they haven't developed into bone, skin, heart, liver and any of the other 216 cell types in the human body. If cell individuation has already occurred, then the zygote would no longer have any usefulness in ESCR.

RT also highlights a confounding contradiction in the position of Tom DeLay, President Bush and the vast majority of others who oppose embryonic stem-cell research on moral grounds. They believe that frozen zygotes are people too, and therefore must not be killed in the name of scientific research ... but only because the best way to kill such zygotes -- by the hundreds of thousands -- is to thaw them out and flush them down the sink.

That they have no problem with:

Past estimates of the number of frozen embryos in the U.S. vary from 100,000 to 188,000. However "experts said that was little more than a guess, and even if it was accurate at one time, it is long out of date now. Plans for what would be the first careful national accounting are being prepared now by the reproductive medicine society."

Some clinics keep the embryos alive in liquid nitrogen indefinitely -- or at least until an operator error or equipment malfunction kills them. One source says that about 25% of frozen and thawed embryos do not survive between the first and second impregnation procedure. This loss rate appears to be related to the quality of the freezing and thawing processes, not to the length of time they have remained frozen. ...

Other clinics simply discard or destroy the spare embryos. Some embryos are simply flushed down a sink drain. Some are transferred to a medical waste bin where they are later incinerated. Some simply expose the embryos to the air and let them die; this normally takes four days or less.

One source speculates that hundreds of thousands of unused embryos have been destroyed in fertility clinics. This compares to the few dozen of embryos which have had their stem cells removed and used to create stem cell lines in the lab. Surprisingly, nobody seems to care or object. Even pro-life groups appear to be silent on this matter.

RT further discusses this odd blindspot of moral outrage here:

Supporters of the pro-life position have a deep concern over at least some of the embryo deaths in [in-vitro fertilization] labs. They generally believe that human personhood begins at conception. Thus, a just-fertilized ovum is a full human being, with a soul. It should have the right to life, and to have all of the other legal rights of any other citizen. This belief is largely founded on:

* Their theological belief in the existence of a soul, and

* The fact that a unique human DNA is created at conception.

To some pro-life supporters, creating 24 human beings, and then murdering 21 of them in order to produce one newborn is much too high a price to pay. It is mass murder. One would expect that pro-life groups would actively picket and demonstrate at IVF clinics. However, we have never seen an account in the media of this actually happening.

A strict, Ratzingerian Catholic would, in principle, be equally opposed to IVF and ESCR, but the outrage-gap here remains notable. I won't speculate about why religious leaders are so outspoken about the latter, but so diffidently polite in their opposition to the former.

I will, however, speculate about why this is true of the politicians courting the favor of such religious leaders. I think it is because they realize that fertility clinics are enormously popular. I think Bush and DeLay are both very familiar with polling data showing that legal action to restrict the work of fertility clinics is a political loser. I think they realize that the kind of finger-wagging, fire-and-brimstone moral condemnation they hurl at supporters of stem-cell research would not play well with the thousands of American families that have benefited from the work of fertility clinics.

I also think that President Bush will eventually awaken to the polling data that shows that ESCR is just as popular, which is another reason why I don't believe his veto threat.

Religious leaders don't care whether or not their position is popular. They are people of genuine faith and commitment whose principles do not vary according to surveys of public opinion. I respect them for that, and I respect their position, while reserving the right to respectfully disagree with it.

I do not believe that the same thing can be said for Tom DeLay or George W. Bush. They do care whether their position is popular, and their principles prove quite elastic if opinion polls suggest they need to be adapted.

The logic of the Bush/DeLay position on ESCR requires that they also oppose IVF. They have not done that. They will not do that. Because it wouldn't be popular. And because they don't really believe what they say they believe.

Comments

[JRoth]

Well, if you listened to NPR this morning, then you heard the latest angle - holding up "saved" IVF children. One Congressman claimed that he had talked about 96 children who had been, apparently, unclaimed embryos at IVF clinics, then implanted and born in unrelated couples. Bush is having some of these children to the White House. This is powerful stuff. The fact that we're talking about 96 kids out of tens of thousands of flushed ones is irrelevant, as is the fact that there is no pending law to protect those hundreds of thousands of inevitably-to-be-flushed ones. The point is that the people with fetus pictures on their bumpers can now claim that 16 cells are more valuable than Michael Kinsley, Muhammed Ali, and 100,000 other victims of diseases that stem cell research could cure.

[Pere Ubu]

Fundies seem to think that fetuses, embryos etc. are merely tiny, tiny humans in all aspects - kinda like the old medieval concept of the Homonculus.

[luminous beauty]

One thing that bothers me is the almost universal acceptance of the idea that embryos are 'killed' in the process of breaking them down into stem cells. The cells are still alive.

[J. Michael Matkin]

It may be that the leadership of the pro-life communities have their hands full as it is with abortion alone. Trying to convince people that zygotes should be preserved when you can't get them to outlaw the destruction of a fetus, with its recognizable human features, heartbeat, etc. is no small task.

On the other hand, there is a very large conversation about issues of fertility in the evangelical community. Much of it just hasn't filtered down yet to the pews, for a lot of reasons. When my wife and I discovered that we were infertile, it became a matter for serious discussion. We found a number of helpful resources, but not much at the local church level. The entire bioethical field is still an arena where pastors have yet to speak into the lives of their congregants from a theological perspective, but its where people are living on an almost daily basis right now.

Ken Myers at Mars Hill Audio Journal has been pulling together experts from a variety of fields to speak to these concerns for several years now. Anyone interested would do well to start with some of the materials that they have put out.

[Agitprop]

How about we prosecute all women who've had miscarriages? By ejecting the cells, zygotes and fetuses from their wombs they are committing cold-blooded murder!

Just wait until Dubya gets some disease that can only be cured by stem-cells. Oh, the irony would so grand!

[spencer]

DeLay believes that human personhood begins at conception

I may be wrong here, but wouldn't the logical extension of this mindset ultimately end up with the belief that birth control pills are a form of abortion? I always understood that the Pill prevents fertilized eggs from implanting themselves in the uterus - but if the egg is fertilized, the conception has already occurred, has it not?

Or do I have no idea what I'm talking about, either biologically or pharmaceutically?

[MightyQuinn]

Glad to hear I wasn't the only person outraged at DeLay's "dismemberment" comment. Blatant demagoguery intended to confer upon a cluster of cells a status which it, by definition, cannot have. Although I'm sure he has long since lost such capacity, DeLay should be ashamed.

[kevin]

two things:

1)to be fair, it is possible that Bush and Delay (though not likely, especially after Delay's recent comments) think they have the best they can possibly get without risking a backlash that would roll back all protections. Not likely, mind you, but I thought someone whould be generous to them.

2)As for the question of life: if you ar ein a lab with a little girl, and a fire starts, and you can save either 100 embryos OR the little girl -- which do you save?

[syfr]

yes, Spencer, that is the logical conclusion, that birth control is abortion. And there are pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions on that basis. And there are people pushing for "conscience clauses" which would allow pharmacists to opt out of their professional responsibilities because they feel that their morality is more important.

http://www.saveroe.com/fillmypillsnow/

[obeah]

spencer: The birth control pill's primary mode of action is to prevent ovulation. A secondary effect is to thicken the cervical mucus, making it more difficult for sperm to pass. A third effect is to thin the endometrial lining, which is less hospitable to implantation of the embryo than a normal endometrium. That the pill actually does cause loss of very early embryos (at least, at a greater rate than occurs naturally) has never been directly observed and is generally simply assumed due to the endometrial-thinning effect. However, it may be the case that in those cycles in which the hormonal changes necessary to inhibit ovulation do not occur, the hormonal changes necessary to inhibit endometrium growth also do not occur. Or, it may be that there is some pill-induced failure to implant, but that this still happens less often than the failures of implantation you'd get naturally if not using the pill (and therefore conceiving more often). Nobody knows for sure.

I submit that it is possible to oppose ESCR and not oppose IVF intrinsically, because it is possible to do IVF without creating and destroying "excess" embryos. That's the way it's done in Germany, for instance, although apparently some people are trying to get the regulations changed. It's harder, but it is possible. I agree that it's completely inconsistent to oppose ESCR and still support IVF the way it is usually practiced in the U.S. I wonder, though, how many people even knew that IVF clinics worked that way before this whole stem-cell debate started. I don't think the IVF debate is over; it may be getting ready to start up again.

If there are embryonic human beings (yeah, I'm one of those wackos who actually believes that a living organism of the species H. sapiens is a human being -- deal with it) that are going to be destroyed, and the only question is whether or not they are killed by being flushed or by harvesting their stem cells, then take the cells. At least some good might come from it. But if the supply of "spare" embryos dried up tomorrow because people were only creating as many as they intended to implant or they donated the rest to adoptive couples, I think that would be a step forward in our society's ethical development.

[J. Michael Matkin]

Good thoughts, obeah. And there are many of us 'wackos' who insist that there is a good bit of ground between the two extremes of saying, on the one hand, that there is total parity between a zygote and a full grown adult and, on the other hand, the notion that zygotes are mere raw genetic material to be used in whatever way our self-indulgent individualism so dictates. The hyperventilating of the right is echoed by the dismissiveness of the left.

[cm]

it is possible to oppose ESCR and not oppose IVF intrinsically

Does it work the other way as well?

[obeah]

Opposing IVF but not ESCR? Well, if there weren't IVF, then there wouldn't be these so-called spare embryos, so researchers would have to create them in order to destroy them. And I'd be surprised if anyone who's opposed to IVF would go for that.

[cm]

That's where I run into problems. If there are going to be spare embryos, then I think they should be used for ESCR rather than left to go to waste. I'm just not sure how I feel about having spare embryos in the first place.

[MCL]

Unfortunately, there's no "magic number" of eggs to retrieve or embryos to implant that will yield the desired number of babies for one family. The egg retrieval process is painful and expensive, so most women want as many harvested as possible. The embryos are usually implanted 3-4 at a time to increase the chance of a successful pregnancy and to reduce expense, as each implantation is expensive.

Some women are lucky and have a successful pregnancy on the first try. I have a friend who went through the procedure and had twins (from three implanted embryos) after the initial IVF treatment. Should she be obligated to undergo further IVF treatments because she has unused embryos?

Another friend's sister had 20 eggs harvested and was on her fourth IVF treatment (with four embryos implanted at a time) before she had a successful single-infant pregnancy. If her doctor had only been allowed to harvest as many eggs as he/she was going to implant, I doubt she would have ever had a child.

I'm just pointing this out because I can't think of any good way to prevent the extra-embryo problem. And if the families don't consider these embryos to be potential children, and they are going to be destroyed anyway, I have to go with allowing them to have a useful purpose.

My mindset on the use of stem-cells for research issue is that it's more like organ donation than abortion. The life as it is isn't viable, so let there be some good purpose in its end.

[B-W]

It seems to me that, to be consistent, any politician who argues against stem cell research on the grounds that it "destroys a living organism" MUST oppose the destruction of extra embryoes for practically ANY reason. I have been given to understand that quite a few IVF embryoes ARE destroyed all the time, and that the bill that Bush and his supportors seek to oppose merely allows for THOSE embryoes (and not others) to be experimented upon. If this is such a travesty, why haven't I heard of legislation INSISTING that IVF embryoes are preserved indefinitely in ALL cases?

[jw]

Mmm'kay. First off, unlike in many other countries, U.S. fertilization clinic practice is not determined by federal law, but rather conducted via professional organization guidelines. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) guidelines aren't sooper seekrit documents; so no need to take my word for it, here -- go read 'em.

A woman undergoes drug-induced hormonal modulation (which is -not- a risk-free procedure) so that eggs may be surgically harvested. Depending on the cause of infertility, the number of eggs may be very limited. These eggs may be used in vitro fertilization (IVF); if the issue is male factor infertility, they may be used in intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in conjunction with IVF. (There are other techniques available, but those are the main ones.)

One of the primary causes of female infertility is age; the number of available eggs declines with age. That means that U.S. clinic usage is way up because of the widespread, common delay in having children. It also means that many women using assisted reproduction have a limited span of time to work with.

Eggs and embryos are not the same thing. Cryostorage of sperm is possible, but no satisfactory, safe procedure for cryostorage of human eggs has been achieved yet. So use 'em or lose 'em: Embryos can be cryostored.

In the U.S., assisted reproduction treatment is extremely expensive. It is not covered by most private health insurance plans, which means that it is already used only by those who can afford it. Because most of those people can't finance multiple attempts, the suggested number of embryos implanted presently ranges from 1 to 3 to increase the likelihood of at least one term pregnancy. (In certain situations, more might be used.) The number is generally limited to 1 to 2 embryos implanted in other countries where fertility treatment is part of a national health plan. (That does not mean that only 1 to 2 embryos are *created*; it only means that that 1 to 2 embryos are *implanted.*)

That's why multiple embryos are made; to allow greater choice of those with the best probability of resulting in a term pregnancy, and to permit cryostorage for future attempts, if needed.

In the usual consent forms that couples/individuals sign before undergoing these procedures, one of the decisions they must make is how long they are willing to finance storage of unused embryos and/or whether to donate unused embryos to research or to other couples. A great many do decide to donate unused embryos to research. More research, obviously, is the only way to increase success rates. So the couples themselves make the decision about what happens to their own embryos.

[Mabus]

Pere Ubu> I hold a B.S. degree in biology (for all the good it has done me). I am well aware that an embryo is not a homunculus. I do not know about the pro-life movement as a whole, but the literature I have read also makes the facts about embryonic and fetal development clear. I have merely given up the old-fashioned perspective that, to be a person, a living entity must "look like me".

Fred is technically correct about the term "dismemberment". But would he have preferred DeLay to have spoken of "chopping human beings into pieces"? That would be accurate, and clearly much more inflammatory. So far as I can tell, the strategy of the pro-choice movement depends on using the most clinical, technical vocabulary possible to strip the debate of emotion. (And, in fairness, much of the pro-life movement uses the most loaded terms possible to inflame emotion. But surely death is something people should get emotional about.)

As several people have pointed out, there are a number of understandable (if not precisely "good") reasons that most pro-lifers do not oppose IVF. The most common, I suspect, is that they do not know what it involves. I myself did not know until a couple of years ago--I assumed that ova and sperm were simply preserved separately until use. Likewise, it plainly isn't politically feasible to oppose it at the moment; it appears that it is all we can do right now to keep the movement going. Irritated though I was about the nuclear-option threat (which would do much more harm than good in the long run), I was appalled last night to hear Nan Aran (I apologize if the name is misspelled) say that any judge who opposed abortion was by definition an extremist and had no business on the Supreme Court. Considering that the only other viable option is a Constitutional amendment, I suspect our prospects are grim. There is no way the Republican majority will survive this term--that is, unless the crazed wingnuts stage a takeover, something I oppose as much as any of you. Heck, I'm not sure the Republican party will survive Bush's second term. (/digression) Anyway, cynical though it may seem, we have to take small steps to get anywhere, and opposing IVF right now is impossibly big.

[Andew Smith]

"Religious leaders don't care whether or not their position is popular. They are people of genuine faith and commitment whose principles do not vary according to surveys of public opinion. I respect them for that, and I respect their position, while reserving the right to respectfully disagree with it."

Look, Fred. as ordained clergy, I am a "religious leader," and I must say that *some* religious leaders are "people of genuine faith." But these guys who are asserting that a fertilized ovum is a complete human being -- including a soul -- are people of utterly artificial faith.

How does the fertilized ovum get its soul? From the ovum? From the sperm? This is utter nonsense, this whole cognitive dissonance between disposing of unused fertilized ova in IVF by sending down a sink drain, and the sudden preciousness of fertilized ova in ESCR.

Please, in the future, when using the term "religious leaders," add a "some" before it.

Love you!

[Peter]

The reason so many eggs are harvested, fertilized and implanted to make one child survive to term has to do with the survival rate of fertilized eggs. Back in the 80s, researchers were trying to figure out why IVF pregnancies had a 20% survival rate (if you stick 1 fertilized egg in, you have a 20% chance of a live birth, and it is pretty easy to count when you know exactly how many of each thingie went in). So while trying to answer that, someone had the smart idea to find out just what the survival rate of the "old fashioned way" of doing things. It turned out, to everyone's surprise, that survival rate of the "old fashioned way" was only 40%. The logical question that one can draw from that is "if life begins at conception, why did 60% of the human race never get born?"

[obeah]

Peter: Why is that the logical question? 100% of us die at some point in our life cycle. That doesn't mean our lives never began.

I suppose it might be logical to ask certain religious believers, "If these lives are so sacred to your god, why did he design human reproduction in such a way that most of them die so early?" But it's not necessary to believe in intelligent design to believe that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being; for that matter, it's not necessary to believe in any gods at all.

[Mabus]

Thank you, Andrew Smith....I have no problem with my faith being "artificial", depending on what you meant by that. (I have said for years that my sense of humor is prosthetic.) Where does a zygote get its soul? Quite frankly, aside from "from God"--I don't know. Where does anyone get his or her soul? At least I maintain that human organisms have souls throughout their lifespan--they do not suddenly, mysteriously descend on an existing organism when it reaches some purely human-defined stage in its development.

As for you, Peter, Obeah has a point. We all die sometime. That does not make our lives meaningless. I honestly don't know why so many die so early. I do know that my first response to learning of the low implantation rate was not "Why so few?" but "So much for it being 'part of the woman's body', if most don't even attach to it." But I know that I have an odd way of thinking about things.

[Mnemosyne]

I do know that my first response to learning of the low implantation rate was not "Why so few?" but "So much for it being 'part of the woman's body', if most don't even attach to it." But I know that I have an odd way of thinking about things.

I have to say, that is by far the oddest way of looking at it that I've ever heard. Talk about completely removing the woman from the picture -- "Hey, her body had a chance to reject it early on before implantation, so how dare she complain later that she doesn't want to have the kid!"

[Maximus]

It turned out, to everyone's surprise, that survival rate of the "old fashioned way" was only 40%. The logical question that one can draw from that is "if life begins at conception, why did 60% of the human race never get born?"

Peter's comment took the words right out of my mouth. Learning this fact led to a major shift in my own thinking, and a realization that the whole shebang is much more complex and full of shades of grey than some would have it.

It is scientifically incontestable that, from the moment of conception onward, we are talking about a separate living organism (not a part of the mother's body) and that it is of the species H. Sapiens (it's got human DNA... it's certainly not a member of any other species).

So, yes, it's alive, and yes, it's human. But the question is it a person? is a separate question. If more than half of all embryos die before ever implanting in the uterus -- when they are just small clusters of undifferentiated cells -- it is morally absurd, IMO, to view them as persons. We have to then take the view that 60% of the human race lived and died exclusively in this form.

But there is precedent for medical research and treatment involving living human cells that are not, in and of themselves, persons. That's what organ transplants are. That's what blood transfusions are. We can do this in a way that is ethical, if we keep the profit motive at bay.

I think ESCR needs to be approached carefully. There is evidence that it may not be as promising as adult stem cell research -- sometimes ESCR advocates get carried away in their utopian projections (like John Edwards in last fall's campaign). In fact, I know of at least one ESCR trial, involving stem cells implanted in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, that went horribly awry: the subjects began developing uncontrollable tics and spasms.

As to whether the government should fund it, that's an entirely separate matter. Opposing gov't. funding for ESCR research is not the same as wanting to outlaw such research.

[Rachel]

Maximus, et al.:
Just FYI: refusing gov't funding for certain kinds of research, but not outlawing those kinds of research, is more ethically problematic than refusing to fund controversial research with gov't monies. This is because scientists have to jump through lots of hoops to secure a gov't funded grant (through the NIH or NSF, for instance). Scientists applying for gov't funded grants have to prove that their proposed research has scientific merit, and will be conducted ethically--anything that involves humans, or human tissue, has to be approved by an independent panel of community members (called an Institutional Review Board) before one can even apply for gov't funding for such research.

Leaving controversial research legal, but denying it gov't funding, pushes scientists interested in such research into the wild wild west of private enterprise. To get research funded through the private sector, one need not prove that one's research is scientifically solid, and one need not seek the approval of an Institutional Review Board to confirm that it's ethical. One only needs to convince some wealthy person that one's research should be done.

Most scientists would far prefer gov't funding to private funding, in spite of the red tape required to get a gov't grant. The problem with the current policy on ESC research is that it pushes scientists interested in this kind of work into the anarchic private sector, where anything goes ethically. If one believes that ESC research is morally wrong, the last thing one should want is to have the ethical guidelines for such research be dictated by nothing but the market.

[Beth]

I have merely given up the old-fashioned perspective that, to be a person, a living entity must "look like me".

At last! Someone with the open-mindedness and compassion to join my campaign for the prevention of cruelty to rocks. Sure, rocks don't look like us, they can't speak or move around, they're not alive, but does that really mean they're any less human than you or me? People laugh at me when I say rocks have souls, but who's to say that I'm not right? Let's err on the side of humanity and put an end to the mistreatment of rocks.

Gee, I was just going to cut to the chase and say that IVF isn't opposed because it's only available to the wealthy.

[Maximus]

Rachel: That's interesting. I'm definitely concerned about biotech research becoming an increasingly privatized (and for-profit, and patented) affair. If ESCR goes forward in this country, I'd prefer that it be done as ethically and openly as possible.

The trial that went bad that I mentioned before was for Parkinson's, not Alzheimer's. And it apparently used fetal stem cells, not embryonic ones. The technical distinctions in these matters are subtle and complex -- we have to make sure we get our facts right before making up our minds too firmly.

Here's the abstract of a NY Times article on the trial in question:

NATIONAL DESK | March 8, 2001, Thursday

Parkinson's Research Is Set Back By Failure of Fetal Cell Implants

By GINA KOLATA (NYT) 1854 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 2

ABSTRACT - Study that tried to treat Parkinson's disease by implanting fetal substantia nigra cells into patients' brains not only fails to produce an overall benefit but also causes uncontrollable writhing and jerking in about 15 percent of patients; cells apparently grew too well in these patients, and there is no way to remove or deactivate them; study was controversial not only because it used tissue from aborted fetuses but also because it involved sham surgery in control group; ...

Disturbing.

[Maximus]

OK, I googled the title of the article I mentioned above, and found the entire text of it elsewhere. Again, it's about fetal rather than embryonic stem cells. But it's still really troubling, and should cause even the most gung-ho supporters of ESCR to step back and think about the risks of scientific arrogance and overselling "miracle cures".

A carefully controlled study that tried to treat Parkinson's disease by implanting cells from aborted fetuses into patients' brains not only failed to show an overall benefit but also revealed a disastrous side effect, scientists report. In about 15 percent of patients, the cells apparently grew too well, churning out so much of a chemical that controls movement that the patients writhed and jerked uncontrollably.

The researchers say that while some patients have similar effects from taking too high a dose of their Parkinson's drug, in this case the drugs did not cause the symptoms and there is no way to remove or deactivate the transplanted cells. ...

The study indicates that the simple solution of injecting fetal cells into a patient's brain may not be enough to treat complex diseases involving nerve cells and connections that are poorly understood.

Some say it is time to go back to the laboratory and to animals before doing any more operations on humans.

The findings may also fuel the debate over whether it is appropriate to use tissue from aborted fetuses to treat diseases. Despite their disappointment, some researchers said they hoped that the results would not bring fetal cell research to an abrupt halt.

The research has been controversial because the fetal cells were obtained from abortion clinics.

"This is still our one great hope for a cure," said Dr. J. William Langston, who is scientific director and chief executive officer at The Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Parkinson's disease occurs when cells of the substantia nigra region in the base of the brain die, for unknown reasons. The hope was that fetal substantia nigra cells might take over for them. But, the study showed, in older patients the operation had no benefit and in some younger patients, the transplants brought on nightmarish side effects.

Although the paper depicts the patients with the side effects in impassive clinical terms, doctors who have seen them paint a very different picture. Dr. Paul E. Greene, a neurologist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a researcher in the study, said the uncontrollable movements some patients suffered were "absolutely devastating."

"They chew constantly, their fingers go up and down, their wrists flex and distend," Dr. Greene said. And the patients writhe and twist, jerk their heads, fling their arms about. "It was tragic, catastrophic," he said. "It's a real nightmare. And we can't selectively turn it off."

One man was so badly affected that he could no longer eat and had to use a feeding tube, Dr. Greene said. In another, the condition came and went unpredictably throughout the day, and when it occurred, the man's speech was unintelligible.

For now, Dr. Greene said, his position is clear: `No more fetal transplants. We are absolutely and adamantly convinced that this should be considered for research only. And whether it should be research in people is an open question."

Dr. Gerald D. Fischbach, who was director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which sponsored the study, said that while the operation had been promoted by some neurosurgeons as miraculous, this was the first time it was rigorously evaluated.

It used sham surgery as a comparison, a controversial and rarely used strategy but one that researchers felt was necessary to understand the true effects of the operation. Dr. Fischbach, who is now dean of the faculty of medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was the director of the institute only at the end of the study. "Ad hoc reports of spectacular results can always occur," Dr. Fischbach said. "But if you do these studies systematically, this is the result you get." ...

Dr. Freed continued to offer it to paying patients while he was treating those who were part of the federal study and whose procedures were paid for by the study. He said he considered these other operations research because he experimented with different amounts and placements of fetal cells. He has given fetal cell implants to 27 patients, he said, with the most recent operation last October.

Dr. Freed said his group was now implanting less fetal tissue and putting the tissue in a different area of the brain, hoping to avoid the devastating side effects. But, he said it would be a mistake to stop doing the surgery altogether.

"To say that you can't do or shouldn't do human research because the research has uncertain outcome, I think would be a bad decision," Dr. Freed said.

Meanwhile, a second federally financed study of the operation is winding to a close, and some researchers say it is time to go back to animal studies and learn more about the complex roles of the brain cells involved in Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Weiner said that if a patient came to him today seeking advice, he would say: "The bottom line for patients is that human fetal cell transplants are not currently the best way to go. If you are willing to pay for them, you can still have them done. But my advice is you ought not to do this."

[Mabus]

Beth: *le sigh* If you can demonstrate that rocks, provided with some naturally-occuring form of nourishment, develop into beings capable of communication, then I will happily join your campaign. (Your objection is more sophisticated, however, than that of some people I have encountered, who simply argue "it doesn't look a thing like a human being, so how can it be one?")

Each embryo in existence corresponds to a specific person who will eventually be able to freely communicate his or her perspectives and interests unless some kind of damage is inflicted on its genetic code or the mechanisms that translate it. To the best of my knowledge, the same is not true of rocks. I find your argument sufficiently disingenuous and annoying that I will now hop in my time machine and persuade your mother to have an abortion instead of giving birth to you. You can have no objection, since you say you did not then exist. (Yes, it's a peculiar argument. No more peculiar, IMO, than yours.)

[Ray]

I can demonstrate that sperm and eggs, when brought together in an entirely natural fashion, eventually develop into beings capable of communication. Therefore I insist that these pairs be brought together. All of them.

If you don't support me in my campaign, I will hop in my time machine and persuade your parents to adopt a celibate lifestyle, instead of having sex and (eventually) creating you. You can have no objection, unless you think that you existed at that time, before the sperm and egg joined.

[Scott]

QOTD
It looks to me as if the best way to convince Bush and his followers to support stem cell research is to propose that we only use arab embryos.

[Mabus]

I temporarily retract the "murder by temporal pre-emption" argument, not because I am convinced of its uselessness or because it is peculiar (or because of Ray's argument--I got out of bed to do this without knowing he had posted), but because I need some time to work through possible ramifications. I was too impulsive in suggesting it now. (I do still believe that if "murder by temporal pre-emption" were to become both possible and provable, it would quickly become a valid criminal charge, out of self-protection if nothing else.) Also, I do not want to take up too much of Fred's blog with arguments over abortion--one reason I have left previous arguments without response.

I will float the thought-experiment among my intellectual, politically-varied friends at Hatrack River and, should the responses warrant, get back to you.

[Ray]

And ask them about "suicide by grandfathericide" while you're at it. And see if they can organise a seminar on "Temporal Lepidopteracide: A valid method of politcal change?".

[mds]

"Temporal Lepidopteracide: A valid method of politcal change?"

Hmm, is this a roundabout invocation of the butterfly effect? Or a reference to "Stupid bug! You go squish now"?

A collection of human cells is not automatically a person. A human cell that has the potential to develop into a person is still not a person. Otherwise, human cloning would be mandatory instead of banned.

If you are asserting that a blastocyst is a person, then you almost certainly have a religious base for doing so. If not, then you don't believe in souls, and wouldn't rationally assign personhood to something without a functioning brain. If you do have a religious base for doing so, then it follows that:

(1) IVF as practiced in this country is murder, and people should be in the streets protesting it, as should an evangelical President who is near-divine himself,

(2) the higher power that designed humanity is a murderer, since human reproduction involves such a high failure rate for implantation, and

(3) with the sole exception of Gregory of Nyssa, revealed religious wisdom did not exist before the nineteenth century, when the concept of "quickening" was thrown out the window in favor of the conception-based point of view. (See also "Rapture")

[Ray]

The butterfly effect. Go back in time, squish a butterfly, and hey presto! the other guy wins the election. Cool process, but a legislative black hole. Can you only go back in time in the first week of November? Or to November?

And the logical corollary is that every time you squish a butterfly, you are changing the result of some future election, which raises another mess of questions - should felons be allowed squish butterflies? non-citizens? should there be a paper trail of every squish? if you buy a fly-swatter, is that 'hard' or 'soft' money?

[Pere Ubu]

If you can demonstrate that rocks, provided with some naturally-occuring form of nourishment, develop into beings capable of communication

You've never heard of singing rocks? And crystals grow from naturally-occuring "food" sources. Rocks are alive, Q.E.D.

If "life" is such a complex phenomenon to define, how much more so "human life"? Much easier and more reasonable to rely on the opinions of 2000-year-old nomads, eh?

[Maximus]

mds:

If you are asserting that a blastocyst is a person, then you almost certainly have a religious base for doing so. If not, then you don't believe in souls, and wouldn't rationally assign personhood to something without a functioning brain.

Wow, those are the only choices I get? I can't believe in souls and think that personhood begins sometime after conception?

[mds]

Wow, those are the only choices I get?

Yep. :-)

I can't believe in souls and think that personhood begins sometime after conception?

P -> Q does not imply ~P -> ~Q.

My argument was that if one doesn't believe in souls then one has no basis for asserting personhood at conception, which is the inverse of your statement. Assigning personhood sometime after conception can be perfectly compatible with a belief in souls, as noted by my reference to "quickening." But if a fertilized egg doesn't even have a soul, then what makes it at least equal to a person, with a potential right to develop that outweighs other moral claims?

Now, if one's objections arise from the doctrine of ahimsa, or an absolutist animal-rights position, then that's a different matter.

[Beth]

I find your argument sufficiently disingenuous and annoying

Then we're even, because that's exactly how I felt about your "looks like me" argument. (Not being "pro-life", I didn't have an impulse to kill you though.) Surely it must have occurred to you that our belief that a zygote isn't human is based not on its appearence, but on its lack of a brain, central nervous system, or anything else that might suggest thought, feeling, consciousness, etc. A dog, cow, even a mosquito, is by any objective measure more "human" than a zygote. Your "naturally-occuring form of nourishment" is equally disenguous. You can't just drop "food" into a test tube and have a human being appear. Without an unnatural surgical procedure to implant it into a woman, it will not develop.

Also if you really want to kill me without laying hands on a living, breathing human being, you can do it without going to all the trouble of building a time machine and tracking down my parents. Just loosen the stone facing above my front door so that when I open the door it will crash down on my head. You'll be even more innocent than with your time machine plan because you won't have to be involved in killing even an embryo, but merely abusing some stonework. You'll have taken my life either way, but if that doesn't worry you with your plan, it shouldn't worry you with mine either.

If you consider killing a zygote murder because it could potentially become a human being, then, as Ray wisely pointed out, anything which prevents a potentially fertilizing sex act is also murder. Anything I do to prevent the fertilization of one of my eggs, from using birth control to failing to have sex with any available man is murder because it denies existence to a potential human life. Locking up a rapist should qualify as mass murder. (Who knows how many women he might have impregnated if he'd been allowed to roam the streets.)

The only thing I regret about my previous comment is that it may have looked like I was mocking people who think zygotes have souls. I was not, nor was I mocking Jains, who believe that rocks and other inanimate objects also have "souls". There's no objective way to measure a soul, so I can't say one belief about them is inferior to another. It's only when people try to impose those beliefs on society by denying potentially lifesaving medical research or denying others autonomy over their own bodies that I have a problem.

[J. Michael Matkin]

I'm wondering where the idea came from that personhood was a subset of humanity. The principal source for the idea of personhood is the Trinitarian debates in the 3rd to 6th centuries; angels, demons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all persons by definition. Jean Vanier, who founded the L'Arche communities in Canada, went so far as to describe a person as being anyone who can be loved.

All the fiddling with whether a zygote is a person is really beside the point. When Jesus was asked to summarize God's law, he replied that we should love God and love our neighbor. The follow-up question was "Who is my neighbor", which is a question of definition. In response, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. But if you read it attentively, you'll see that the story doesn't answer the question "Who is my neighbor" but rather "How ought I to be a neighbor". Jesus throws the matter back in the lap of his questioner, who wants clear boundary lines around who is neighbor so that he can safely ignore those who are. His whole attitude and approach are wrong, and I wonder if this debate over the precise nature of personhood doesn't head into that direction as well.

We all recognize that once sperm and egg join, a self-directed biological process begins which will, if all things go as planned, continue on through fetal development, birth and infancy, childhood, puberty, adulthood, senescence and death. That nature throws her own obstacles into that path doesn't by itself justify our own intrusion; just because I might die from cancer doesn't imply that it's all the same if somebody shoots me. Since all of us began the same way, we all can recognize the potential that each of these processes holds, the continual unfolding of a unique human being. A concept of soul (by the way, from the biblical perspective we don't have souls, we are souls) or of some kind of communal belonging insists that there is a real loss if such a unique individual process ends (or is ended) prematurely. That's why some of us describe abortion as murder, not because of the 'quantity' of the victim's humanity, but because of the 'quality' of the perpetrator's humanity.

[Connie Knighton]

Dear God. And to think that Americans have sacrificed their lives that others may live in a least one ligitimate cause in the last hundred years! I thought that was a basic principle of THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE.

[J. Michael Matkin]

Err, "safely ignore those who AREN'T" that is

[Mabus]

I will make one final post before opting out of this particular discussion (I can't say I will not come back for future abortion threads; I am a glutton for punishment). Since I appear to be virtually the only person willing to take a pro-life position, I cannot keep up with the flood of opposing posts alone.

I have indeed encountered people whose primary pro-choice argument was simply "it does not look human to me, so it isn't human". I apologize for mistaking Beth for such a person.

I have concluded my "time travel" argument was ill-thought out, but not merely because it takes an "impossible" scenario to argue about the possible. Such thought-experiments are quite common in both philosophy and the sciences. The notion of "riding on a beam of light" is at least equally impossible (probably more so--serious physicists still discuss the possibility of time travel), but it was used by Einstein to reason out his theories of relativity.

I do not wish to control anyone's body other than my own. Rather, I wish to give another set of people the opportunity to control their own bodies as well, who (in my view) are being killed instead. You disagree with my perspective, and that is fine with me. But I do not appreciate being treated as if I had some malicious desire to run women's lives. It is entirely possible that there are pro-lifers whose motives are as you describe. That does not mean I am one of them.

Finally, as to the notion that people like me should be "protesting in the streets"--quite possibly we should, if it will be effective. If it will not, then we should seek more effective means. Street protests are something my religious tradition has eschewed as inappropriate since the temperance and abolition movements of the early 1800s. That even a small number of us would participate in anti-abortion protests should at least tell you something about our sincerity and our level of concern.

Signing off.

[Gus]

Very interesting discussion... and personally relevant. My wife and I have been trying to get pregnant artificially since last October -- first IUI, then IVF. Our IVF cycle resulted in pregnancy, but it only lasted 9 weeks (probably due to her diabetes, which was diagnosed when she miscarried).

We aren't wealthy... not by a long shot. But here in MA, the law REQUIRES insurance companies to cover fertility treatment, although they can set certain limits on it (age is the most common one), so we took advantage of that chance.

Other than that point, I basically agree with what jw said -- that's a good summary of the process.

We hope to try again, but aren't sure if the insurance will still cover us b/c diabetic pregnancies are almost always considered "high risk." We, unfortunately, didn't get that many embryos the first time, so we'd need to basically start from scratch.

One Congressman claimed that he had talked about 96 children who had been, apparently, unclaimed embryos at IVF clinics, then implanted and born in unrelated couples.

I find it VERY hard to believe that any reputable clinic would do what this guy claims. I suspect some investigation can prove he's lying or at least distorting the truth to serve his own ends. (He should be roundly criticized for politically prostituting children at the very least!!)

Generally, clinics will allow couples to designate what they want to do with any leftocer embryos -- ours said we could keep them frozen (paying a fee), destroy them, or give them to science. It definitely did NOT make "donate to random strangers" an option, and should not have.

Doing that would be unethical; among other things, it would require the clinic to violate the first couple's confidentiality or to hide the facts of the embryo's origins from the second couple. I can't imagine any couple wanting to implant an embryo without knowing everything they could about its source (health issues, etc).

[Tyler Simons]

I'm so glad that the media is picking up on this tension in the Republican position. The Republicans have a plank in their platform calling for a Foetus rights amendment to the constitution. The thing is, if this ever were to pass, it would necessitate an instant moratorium on all IVF procedures, since, as far as I can tell, inevitably some zygotes fail to survive during the procedure. I was so excited when I realized the implications that I wrote about it twice.

[Garnet]

Rather, I wish to give another set of people the opportunity to control their own bodies as well, who (in my view) are being killed instead.

These would be the embryos, no? The ones that don't require control over their own bodies, but over the bodies of the women necessary to carry them to term? The ones that, to not be 'killed', need to radically alter the physical and neuro-chemical makeup of a woman, before subjecting her to excruciating pain and an appreciable risk of death?

"I do not wish to control anyone's body other than my own." While a noble sentiment, it neatly skips over the fact that, to do what you want, that's exactly what you have to do.

[obeah]

Mr. Matkin, thank you for a wonderful post. I'm not a Christian, but I think your point about defining "neighbor" in the Good Samaritan story is a good one (although I believe you meant to say, "...wants clear boundary lines around who is neighbor so that he can safely ignore those who are not.")

Gus, I am puzzled by your assertion that donating embryos to another infertile couple to be brought to term "would require the clinic to violate the first couple's confidentiality or to hide the facts of the embryo's origins from the second couple." It wouldn't violate the first couple's confidentiality if they agreed to the donation, and agreed to give the second couple any pertinent medical information. Apparently, these donations can be done anonymously, so it's not like the second couple would have to know the donors' names, or would be able to link the information to them personally. I assume medical information is shared in regular adoptions as well, so I don't quite see how embryo donation differs in that regard.

[chris]

Actually, the parable of the Samaritan does answer the question, "Who is my neighbour?"

The answer is, any passing stranger (and by implication anyone you know better than that).

[David]

The answer could also be defined as anyone who needs help. This is a helpful reminder as there are many in these situations who need help - the childless couples, the people suffering from diseases that might benefit from stem cell research, and also the foetus/zygote. That so many seem (and I say 'seem' as not to paint with too broad a brush) to be willing to reserve compassion and consideration solely for the foetus is part of what can make the pro-life side sound shrill and, at times, hypocritical. It may be a question of theological worldview - the foetus is innocent and pure, the people involved are sinful and tainted, therefore the foetus takes precedence and is more valued. But that's admittedly a thought off the top of my head.

I am pro-life in that I believe abortion is wrong, but I'm not convinced I have a right to legislate that moral belief. I think stem-cell research could be greatly beneficial, but that restritictions need to be in place to prevent the development of farming embryos for. That said, I do believe there could a moral, justifiable use of foetus' bound for destruction for the purposes of stem cell research.