Stem cell research has recently received heavy media coverage with the controversy surrounding the South Korean researcher Hwang Woo-Suk, who stunned the medical world with claims he created the first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them — research later found to have been faked.
Across the UK and the world stem-cell research has been the centre of controversy and heated debate. The British government has also stated that it would increase funding to stem cell research by £50 million over the next two years.In addition, in the USA Maryland has become the fourth American state to pass a legislation to fund stem cell research including embryonic stem cell research.
With the increasing interest and concerns surrounding stem cell research and cloning, the senior scholar of The Centre for Bioethics Human Dignity and the Director of the Bioethics Program at Trinity International University, USA, Dr. John Kilner, spoke on 28th March about the ethical concerns of stem cell research and the role that the Church and Christians should have in the controversy.
What are the ethical dilemmas surrounding embryonic stem cell research? In particular, what are Christian leaders who are opposed to it mostly concerned about?
First of all, it is important to recognise that stem cell research as a category of science and medicine is a very exciting area and I think Christians and others alike recognise that so many medical problems are due to the loss or deaths of certain cells or tissues. However, one real concern is where we are getting these stem cells from.
We want to highlight the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells because in terms of adult stem cells they can be obtained without harming the source from which they are being obtained. Whereas embryonic stem cells require destroying embryonic human beings from which they are taken.
But granting for the sake of time that human beings do begin at the embryonic stage – these would be the earliest stage of human being – then one ethical concern is that we do not destroy or harm human beings to obtain these cells. That is one core ethical dilemma.
One other great concern is about how this is being discussed in the media, public policy, and various arenas. The fact is that so often just the term ‘stem cell’ is used, and this promotes the idea that either you are for or against stem cell research. So the discussion may be narrower about some form of stem cell research, but by using the non-specific general term of stem cell, it implies that if you are not for it then you are hard-hearted, uncompassionate, and you don’t care about these people dying.
This is a serious ethical concern – an ethic of truthful communication. Far more has been accomplished with adult stem cell research than embryonic stem cell research. Apart from the ethical issues evolved in destroying embryonic human beings, adult stem cell research has produced results so it is simply not truthful to say that major embryonic breakthroughs are right on the verge and we should channel all our resources to embryonic stem cell research.Again to bring up another ethical concern, what has played in recent months with Dr. Hwang and the South Korean issue is further testimony of people saying that human embryonic stem cells and clones to match the individual who will need the treatment is right around the corner but not producing the results for the claim. In spite of the huge amount of effort and huge number of attempts made they didn’t get one stem cell line.
