When does life begin? Have President Bush’s 2001 restrictions on federally-funded stem cell research actually had inadvertent positive impacts on the field? How much say should the government have in what is done with excess embryos created in fertility clinics?
These and several other tough questions were at the center of a public forum held last night at Radcliffe College, hosted by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Three authors of recent books about the stem cell controversy (Michael Bellomo – The Stem Cell Divide, Eve Herold of the Florida-based nonprofit group Genetics Policy Institute – Stem Cell Wars and Christopher Thomas Scott of Stanford – Stem Cell Now) wrestled with these questions and recounted some interesting stories about the people they talked to and the insight they gained while researching their books.
Eve Herold made a good point about how stem cell research has opened up a Pandora’s box of issues to do with in-vitro fertilization, which has been the main source of embryos used in human embryonic stem cell research. IVF has been going on for years in private clinics but only now in the US, because of the stem cell controversy, are people talking about what to do with all the excess embryos created during IVF.
It’s a valid question and a very difficult one for couples who don’t want more kids but have embryos sitting frozen in IVF clinics. Herold said antiabortion groups are now expanding their focus to say that we should avoid creating extra embryos in the first place. She raised the alarm over the possibility of government regulating what happens to unwanted embryos (forced adoption by other couples?).
The moderator of last night’s event, Willy Lensch, a stem cell scientist at Children’s, and a blogger on NNB, responded to a question from the audience by saying that the Bush restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research have actually had some benefits for the field, by causing some states to realize that they have a role to play in funding this kind of research. In California ($3 billion) and Connecticut ($20 million), that new money has been targeted to young researchers, which everyone seemed to agree is a good thing. The question is…if the federal rules are changed and the NIH can fund this research, will the states pull back?
An elderly man in the audience of about 100 people stood up to ask the biggest question of the night: when does life begin?