For Immediate ReleaseAugust 13, 2001
Contact:Alisa Giardinelli610.690.5717 [email protected]www.swarthmore.edu
All Stem-Cell Research Must Be Regulated, Swarthmore College Biologist Says
Recent Decision Ignores History of Similar Debates
Although stem-cell research will proceed following President Bush's recent policy statement, a Swarthmore College developmental biology expert cautions that if the research is not publically funded, it will likely be driven by market considerations rather than ethical ones.
"My fear is that if there's no public funding for embryonic stem-cell research, the only scientists who can do it are those in corportations," says professor of biology Scott F. Gilbert, the author of Developmental Biology (Macmillan, 2000), a bestselling textbook now in its sixth edition. "The products of these embryonic stem-cell studies would become part of a market economy in which only economics, not morals, decide what is done and who can use these procedures. Instead of saying 'ban everything' or 'permit everything,' I advocate a middle ground -- regulate everything, public and private."
Gilbert advocates a system similar to that used in Great Britian, in which an agency of politicians, scientists, and lay people regulates research on human embryos. "Unlike the Americans, the British recognize that 'twinning' of the embryo can still occur before day 14," Gilbert says. "Twins are separate people, thus whatever 'ensoulment' might exist would not occur before then. So they allow research until day 14, and they regulate it."
According to Gilbert, whose undergraduate degree is in religion, the moral debate about stem cells is not about good versus evil, or science against religion. It is about two competing notions of what is good for human dignity.
"First, there is an abstract notion that maintains there is something special about being human which sets us apart from other animals," he says. "However, this notion of human dignity can be used to thwart improvements in the human condition. For example, conservative religious groups, the Catholic Church among them, vehemently opposed vaccination against smallpox, even a hundred years after its first use, because they felt that the injection of serum from a cow into a human was an affront to human dignity."
In contrast is a second, more concrete, concept. "Physicians often claim that disease not only affects the body but that it robs the dignity from a person," Gilbert says. "Thus, supporters of stem-cell research argue that it has the potential to restore dignity to the suffering and might enable, for instance, the Alzheimer's patient to be able to dress himself and recall experiences, the Parkinson's patient to control her movements, and the paraplegic to walk and control his bowels. The danger is that one can enter upon a slippery slope wherein any technological procedure that can be done should be done."
Gilbert, who also teaches the history of science, foresees changes in American policy on stem-cell research when politicians are confronted with success from other countries, and sees correlations between this and other past debates over scientific advances. "It depends on the science, which is going remarkably fast," he says. "It will be similar to in vitro fertilization in England. Once it became it possible, it was allowed here. It's also very much like atomic energy -- once the genie is unleashed, you can't put it back in the bottle. It must be regulated."
Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,450. Swarthmore is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
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