OPINION will be polarised this week as the Queensland Parliament debates cloning and experimentation on human embryos.
This polarisation was evident in an exchange I had with Professor Alan Trounson, director of the new National Stem Cell Centre, on ABC TV’s Lateline last August. I put to Trounson that ‘if the embryo matters there are certain things we cannot do. We cannot define this littlest member of the human family as mere meat for the consumption of science’.
The compere put the question: ‘Alan Trounson, is it the smallest member of the human family, the embryo?’
Trounson replied, ‘It’s clearly human. We treat it with respect, but we have laws which say that we have to destroy it.’
The compere probed further: ‘Does that actually bother you ethically if this is a human entity?’
At which point Trounson gave a lesson in the logic of the culture of death: ‘No, it doesn’t bother me at all, because the regulatory bodies have just approved the morning-after pill, which would prevent implantation, we use the IUD, that prevents implantation, we’re allowed to have abortion on demand. I mean, what suddenly tells us that the five or six-day embryo is outside the boundaries of what we already accept that we can destroy or not allow to implant?’
This deadly logic prevailed in the federal debate, for the first time defining a sub-group of the human family as useful laboratory animals to be dissected and exploited for science.
The depressed emptiness which settled over many of us with the federal vote is likely to be deepened with the State Parliament debate.
It looks like the majority of our state MPs will simply roll over to the argument that, since these IVF embryos are just going to be thrown out, ‘why not use them for something good?’
But they fail to ask two hard questions.
First, how did this dehumanised situation arise, where thousands of human offspring are discarded like expired meat?
We face this situation because, against the advice of every state enquiry into IVF in the 1980s, the industry was allowed to stockpile frozen embryos.
Ironically, coinciding with the federal debate, a British baby showed a way to stop the stockpiling. He was born using his mother’s frozen ovum, stored until his parents were ready to conceive six months later. The solution to the disgrace of the frozen generation is clear – freeze ova for later conception, not living embryos.
The central offence of stockpiling embryos must be stopped – not perpetuated by establishing a permanent market for ‘surplus’ offspring, desecrated as laboratory material to achieve ‘something good’.
The second hard question is about the validity of claims that embryos will ever achieve ‘something good’ for afflictions like Parkinson’s and paralysis.
Most politicians blindly accept these claims. They lack the strength to crawl out from beneath the heap of embryonic hype. They simply believe the fevered fantasies about curing Alzheimer’s and Superman and little diabetic children.
A recent open letter to all Australian parliaments from nine senior medical scientists tries to counter these fantasies, warning that ‘undue expectations have been created in the community, particularly in those with various medical afflictions, as to the imminence and likely scope of embryonic stem cell therapy.’
The letter, entitled ‘No scientific imperative for destructive research on human embryos’ and co-signed by various professors – including the head of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Michael Good, and head of the Children’s Medical Research Institute, Peter Rowe – advised that, by contrast, ‘research on stem cells derived from adult and placental tissues, which has seen great advances in the last three years, is quite compelling in its clinical promise, and does not involve the destruction of nascent human life.’
Scientifically, for serious technical reasons – that of tumour formation and immune rejection – embryo stem cells are highly unlikely ever to be trialled in humans, while adult stem cells are already making dramatic advances in human trials even here in Australia – spinal injury (at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital), heart disease (Newcastle’s John Hunter Institute), and in the months ahead, Parkinson’s (Melbourne’s Peter McCallum Institute). Not to mention the Australian children cured of ‘bubble boy’ immune deficiency, cases of corneal blindness repaired in California, stabilising of advanced multiple sclerosis and lupus, and dozens of other clinical applications (see stemcellresearch.org).
This is real and tangible science, real grounds for cautious hope, contrasting to the implausible speculation and blank score-card of embryo therapies.
But the embryonic fantasy will continue to be fermented of exclusive miracles just around the corner, for as long as biotech companies need to ensure access to human embryos for more practical research. Such research will above all, as the Senate Inquiry heard, include drug testing (Hansard 17/9/2 p40 -41), as well as training IVF technicians.
Leading embryo researchers made clear to the Senate committee that drug testing is a practical and profitable application of embryonic stem cells, Professor Alan Trounson enthusing, ”These cells will be highly useful for screening drugs for both toxicology and effectiveness” (Hansard CA141, June 24).
There is already a market for mouse embryonic stem cells, which are similar to our own, but the drug companies would accelerate research (and share value) if they could go directly to human embryonic stem cells.
If these commercial facts of life need to be hammered home further, consider Trounson’s successful application for the $46.5 million taxpayer grant to his Stem Cell Centre: ”The centre will be developing pure populations of cells and plans to be primarily a supplier to screening companies for drug screening of selected cell types on a fee for service or a licence basis.”
Primarily a supplier for drug screening. That is the reality behind this whole embryonic stem-cell hoax.
Some members of state parliament, like their valiant federal colleagues, will expose this hoax and clarify the real commercial uses for human embryos. They will rightly reject embryo stem cell cures as fanciful, useless and dangerous, a mere smokescreen for the drug companies, and affirm adult stem cell cures as ethically innocent, medically safe and actually treating humans in novel and exciting ways. They will put on the record that this bill is progressing on the basis of bad science and worse morals.
But the Research on Embryos Bill will still become law – a sad reflection on our representatives and a significant setback in the ongoing struggle to protect the littlest members of the human family, known and loved in God. This round goes – on points, not by a knockout – to the culture of death.
Dr David van Gend is a Toowoomba GP and Queensland spokesman for Do No Harm, an association promoting stem cell research but opposing embryo destruction.
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