Standing Up for Fundamental Human Equality

Editor's note. The bulk of this letter to the editor was printed in the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune June 9. Written by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL), it succinctly explains why the proposed legislation "crosses a fundamental ethical line."

To the Editor:

In Monday's Star Tribune, state Rep. Phyllis Kahn lambasts Gov. Tim Pawlenty for vetoing her stem cell research bill. Kahn's misleading rhetoric disguises a radical and inhumane commitment to taking young human life regardless of advances in ethical research.

Her bill, S.F. 100, would allow taxpayer dollars to fund University of Minnesota research that requires killing human embryos. Further, the bill legalizes human cloning in order to supply more embryos for such research.

Kahn says her legislation "outlawed human cloning," but this is pure deception. The bill explicitly authorizes "somatic cell nuclear transplantation" (SCNT), which is the technique by which cloning occurs. The National Institutes of Health calls SCNT "the scientific term for cloning."

In truth, what Kahn's legislation outlaws is allowing a cloned human to develop through the "embryo, fetal, and newborn stages" (so-called "reproductive cloning"). The bill sanctions the practice of creating a new human and then killing him or her, before birth, for research purposes ("therapeutic cloning").

It should be obvious that S.F. 100 crosses a fundamental ethical line. Cloning and embryo-destructive research relegate a particular class of human beings--those in the earliest stages of their development--to the status of a natural resource we may harvest for our own ends. Instead of protecting the youngest and most vulnerable members of the human family, Kahn wants to treat them like chattel--and force taxpayers to foot the bill! (Fittingly, she refers to parents as "owners" who may "donate" their embryonic offspring to be carved up for experimentation.)

Kahn offers the standard rationale that only "stored embryos destined for destruction" will be harvested, but this argument fails for at least three reasons.

First, Kahn herself advocates creating brand new humans for the sole purpose of farming them for useful parts. Second, no one suggests that we kill and harvest terminally ill patients, inmates on death row, or dying soldiers on the battlefield, even though they are "going to die anyway." Kahn assumes that the embryo is not a valuable human person and hence begs the question. Finally, she ignores the thriving practice of embryo adoption, whereby embryos "left over" from in vitro fertilization are adopted into families and allowed to grow up.

Kahn's support for creating and destroying innocent human life is even more alarming given the existence of promising, ethical alternatives to embryo-destructive research.

Already, adult stem cells have treated over 70 different human diseases, and hundreds of more human trials have been approved by the FDA.

Meanwhile, a technique called direct reprogramming has generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are as versatile as embryonic stem cells without the drawback of immune rejection. And iPS cell research, unlike cloning, doesn't require the dangerous harvesting of eggs from young women.

Direct reprogramming is promising enough that Ian Wilmut, the scientist who famously cloned Dolly the sheep, has now abandoned research into human cloning and says embryo-destructive research is unnecessary. "I have no doubt that in the long term, [iPS cells] will be more productive," he says.

Still, Kahn criticizes this new method for using retroviruses that could potentially be cancer-causing. But as George Daley demonstrated in a separate Harvard study, iPS cells can be created without using retroviruses. (And Kahn calls her pro-life opponents "undereducated"!)

For now, Pawlenty's veto saves us from Kahn's clone-and-kill assault on human dignity.

But Minnesotans should know that, even without S.F. 100 and state funding, the U of M is currently killing human embryos for their stem cells. And the school's administration has refused to explain how such killing is compatible with Minnesota Statute 145.422, which prohibits "use of a living human conceptus for any type of scientific, laboratory research or other experimentation except to protect the life or health of the conceptus."

Kahn's legislation will be back, and the U's embryo killing continues. Minnesotans must stand up for fundamental human equality--for the rights of the most vulnerable among us.

Please send any comments to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.