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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Wednesday, May 7, 2003

EDITORIAL
Stem-cell research seems unstoppable

Researchers have grown eggs from the embryonic stem cells of mice in a breakthrough that one day could revolutionize the treatment of disease and infertility, as well as reproductive roles.

Scientists have been able to manipulate stem cells into organs. Now they've figured out how to turn those stem cells into embryos.

If human cells respond the same way as mice cells, women and men should be able to produce gametes — sperm or egg cells — via stem cells. That bodes well for women whose eggs are deficient, and even some day for same-sex couples seeking to have their own combined biological offspring.

The ethical issues surrounding this scientific advance are daunting. It will certainly sound alarms in the "traditional values" community, among abortion foes and those who fear we are marching down the road to human cloning.

For these reasons, scrupulous ethical scrutiny must be applied to every step of this research. But fears of where reproductive cloning might lead should not hold back advances in therapeutic cloning.

Nor should we be automatically resistant to the idea of reproductive cloning. One might recall the vehement objections to in vitro fertilization when the first test tube baby was born in England in 1978. Today, tens of thousands of children have been created via IVF without sinister repercussions.

If conducted responsibly, stem-cell research has the potential to vastly improve the human life cycle.