June 25, 2007

Recently, there was an attempt to pass a bill that would encourage experimentation on embryonic stem cells.

There was all the usual swamping confusion of terms, and the bizarre fixation upon when, precisely, such cells were created. After such deluges of irrelevant considerations, we may well wonder whether we should not simply leave these technical matters to the scientists and let politics do something else.

Leaving science to the scientists is an idea that has some merit. I am not sure that when the Founding Fathers made our country they wanted citizens to have to try to decide which confusing technology to fund with their money.

There are times when government research projects produce technologies which are useful to everyone. On the other hand, if a technology simply won't be developed without government money, then it probably wasn't useful enough for someone else to discover. After all, useful technology such as screws and screwdrivers, "Velcro", and modern computer operating systems were invented without the help of the government.

I look with skepticism at the claims that embryonic stem cell research simply won't happen if the government doesn't get involved. If the researchers couldn't persuade people and corporations to part with their own money, why should we give our tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research?

The promises held out by researchers of embryonic stem cells also deserve some scrutiny. If only we would research embryonic stem cells, we are told, we could solve multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. A skeptic, or a scientist, might ask for some proof, or at least evidence, of these sweeping claims. Perhaps such broad promises were why few are willing to fund embryonic stem cell research.

We also have to very seriously ask ourselves if we are willing to become technological vampires. Dracula sucked the life out of humans to further his own. Isn't creating a tiny human and then killing it for its cells the same crime?

It could be argued that embryos are simply an assemblage of a few cells. I fail to see the application of this argument. Everyone reading these words at one point in life had a body that consisted of just a few cells. Moreover, I think it fairly clear that an embryo is rather more than an assemblage of cells. An embryonic stem cell line can honestly be called a simple assemblage of cells. An embryo, on the other hand, continues growing into a baby, then into a child, then into an adult, then an elder, and then dies. The stem cell line will never experience hunger or pain or joy or sorrow, but the person will. Should we really kill a person to collect their stem cells?

There is an alternative to embryonic stem cell research, one which actually had enough evidence behind its promise to convince many different people to fund many different projects, and already has developed treatments. The alternative is adult stem cell research. Adult stem cell treaments already has treated Parkinson's disease and mutliple sclerosis.

We should use our tax dollars responsibly, not use them to chase after vampiric and unproven technologies. The president was quite right to refuse, on behalf of the American people, to spend our money on embryonic stem cell research.