Discrimination

The New York Times published an interview with Douglas Melton, the Harvard researcher who is creating stem cell lines that are outside the guidelines for eligibility for Federal funds. He's not sure how many cell lines there are that come under those guidelines, and he's really fuzzy about when life begins, but he wants our tax money to support his lab.

Melton opines about the difficulty of setting up parallel labs, one which is funded by Federal tax money, and one which is not. He ought to recognize that the process (which he compares to keeping two Kosher kitchens) is just more practice in discriminating and drawing artificial lines between two purposes.

My first response is, There's nothing unethical about what we're doing here. We think embryonic stem cells can be made to become pancreatic beta cells and that they will be able to help diabetics produce their own insulin. I've never once doubted the morality of this work.

This is all about differing religious beliefs. I don't believe I have the right to tell others when life begins. Science doesn't have the answer to that question; it's metaphysical.

Now it's true, we use fertilized human eggs to derive embryonic stem cells. And those fertilized eggs have the potential, under certain circumstances, to become a living person. There are many who believe that there's a moral imperative to use that potential to try to help living sick people.

Learn more about Dr. Melton at the Harvard website. He believes that since the embryos can be frozen, they are only "potential" life, and that since the embryos were "extra," and destined for "destruction" anyway,what he does is "pro-life." By destroying the embryos, he intends to do good.

The "fertilized eggs" are human embryos, and they are living. Embryos have been successfully implanted and the children born after years and years of being frozen.

In the case of the embryos that Melton destroyed, if they had not been purposefully and intentionally placed in harm's way by the artificial circumstances of their beginnings they could join their brothers and sisters in their mother's arms.