Posted on: Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Editorial
Pope's warning need not end cell research
As he wound up his European trip yesterday, President Bush took time for a private meeting with Pope John Paul II.
It probably came as no surprise to the president that the pope used the occasion to lecture his visitor about one of the thorniest medical/ethical/legal/political issues on his desk: stem cell research.
The pope urged Bush to stop all federal funding for stem cell research and instead become a leader in protecting life "from conception until natural death."
Bush was vigorously non-committal after the meeting, saying only that he would take the pope's point-of-view into consideration as he makes up his mind.
As he does, Bush might make note of the pope's particular condemnation of laboratories that create human embryos specifically for medical research. These are often for-profit labs that are beyond the reach of the regulation and controls that can come with federal funding.
If the thought of someone creating embryos solely for the purposes of research and for the harvesting of cells is repugnant to Bush, that should lead him only more firmly to a decision to maintain federal research support.
Most of the research that has taken place under federal grants focuses on embryos that are surplus from efforts at in vitro fertilization.
These embryos are maintained in a frozen state until they are at such an age that they are considered potentially nonviable. Then they are destroyed.
It seems to make far more sense to make ethical use of these cells in research that may lead to a cure for a wide variety of diseases, ranging from Alzheimer's to diabetes.
Federal support for such research would lessen the need for private, for-profit efforts, would help guarantee ethical standards and would lead to the widest possible distribution of whatever benefits may eventually come from this research.
In that sense, it would be possible to honor the pope's sentiment without shutting the door on this most important scientific work.
