Scruples and Science
By George F. Will
Source: Washington Post, January 20, 2000; Page A23
LINCOLN, Nebraska -- The offices of L. Dennis Smith, president of the
University of Nebraska, and Mike Johanns, the state's Republican governor,
are less than three miles apart. Their offices are closer than their
positions concerning a controversy that, thanks to rapidly evolving
biological science, may soon be transcended.
But when it is, we may be nostalgic for the comparative simplicity of
today's moral dilemma about the use, in research and medical therapy, of
cells derived from fetuses made available by elective abortions. Smith
favors this. Johanns does not.
All cells in a human body contain the individual's full DNA--the genetic
code. But as the body grows from conception on, a cellular division of
labor begins. Cells begin to differentiate, extinguishing, so to speak,
all the DNA other than that pertinent to each cell's particular
function--as blood, bone, muscle, etc. However, undifferentiated
cells--the early progenitors or ancestors of all other cells in the
subsequent body--are well-described as "biological jacks-of-all-trades."
They can differentiate to form many types of cells. The scientific
prognosis is that undifferentiated cells will one day be used to treat a
variety of diseases (e.g., Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, HIV- induced
dementia) and injuries (e.g. stroke, spinal cord injuries) by producing
new tissues.
The bioethical problem is that the life-saving and life-enhancing
potential of cell research can be furthered by cells harvested in ways
that many consider destructive of respect for life--ways that treat some
human lives as mere means for serving the ends of other lives. The
controversy over fetal cell research parallels in many ways the
controversy over research using cells derived from surplus embryos
produced by fertility clinics.
In an act of astonishing civic obtuseness, the University of Nebraska
Medical Center in Omaha established a relationship with an abortionist to
supply aborted fetuses as sources of cells. The center even gave the
abortionist an honorific association with the center, which he advertised
on his Web site.
This came to the attention of the Nebraska right-to-life movement. One of
the movement's sympathizers, Gov. Johanns, wants to end research using
cells obtained that way.
President Smith casts the controversy as one of academic freedom: "We
can't teach or do research based on what an interest group wants us to
do." He says, "A public university serves all of the people and should
strive to be beneficial to mankind."
However, surely a state institution has an obligation of statesmanship, a
duty to display decent respect for the deeply held convictions and deeply
felt aversions of a substantial portion of the taxpaying public. Catholics
certainly, but by no means exclusively, reject utilitarian arguments for
research that is dependent on the methodical creation of, or the
deliberate interruption of, human life. It is a biological fact, not a
theological postulate, that such life is a continuum from conception to
death of an entity with a distinct genetic individuality.
Gov. Johanns favors fetal cell research but believes a sufficient supply
of cells can be obtained from sources (e.g., spontaneous abortions,
miscarriages, placental blood) that do not abrade community sensibilities.
The medical center now says it will try to acquire all cells from sources
other than elective abortions.
President Smith, a developmental biologist who would like a biology course
to be a prerequisite for recipients of his university's baccalaureate
degrees, believes that soon science will bypass this controversy. En
route, it will produce many others.
In 10 to 15 years, Smith surmises, scientists will be able to take a cell
from an individual's skin, de-differentiate it, and manipulate it into a
source for various living tissues. In fact, last month researchers at the
Baylor College of Medicine in Houston reported that undifferentiated cells
from muscles of adult mice have a "remarkable capacity" to be transformed
into blood cells.
This report is part of a rapidly growing body of evidence that some animal
cells can differentiate into tissue types other than their tissue of
origin. Dr. Margaret Goodell of the Baylor College says perhaps muscle and
other cells "can be turned into heart, brain, nerve, skin or other cell
types."
President Smith assumes, plausibly, that mature human cells soon will
have, with an assist from science, this capacity. Certainly what seems
remarkable in one decade becomes routine in the next.
A disquieting era of genetic manipulation is coming, one that may
revolutionize human capacities, and notions of health. If we treat moral
scruples impatiently, as inherently retrograde in a scientifically
advancing civilization, we will not be in moral trim when--soon--our very
humanity depends on our being in trim.
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