Stem Cell Research: What’s It All About?

We’re hearing a lot about stem cell research and its amazing potential to treat many diseases. It is true that stem cell research offers hope for curing medical conditions that previously could not be helped. But when we hear about stem cell research, we need to ask ourselves two questions: “What kinds of stem cells?” and “Where do they come from?”

Need Help Understanding Cloning? Take a few minutes and review our stem cell process chart. Click here

Kinds of stem cells

A stem cell is a cell that has the ability to grow into many different types of cells in the human body. If scientists can learn to harness the power of stem cells, they may some day be able to use stem cells to repair diseased organs as well as damaged nerves and bone. The potential is truly is incredible. But where will they get these stem cells? Stem cells exist all through the human body. Stem cells can be obtained ethically from your own tissues and blood or the blood of a newborn baby’s umbilical cord or from the placenta, which is usually discarded as medical waste. These so-called “nonembryonic” or “adult” stem cells have already been used to treat such conditions as cancer, blindness, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injury.

A small but vocal minority of researchers, however, is not content to study these stem cells, which are available in almost unlimited supply. They want funds to support their research involving embryonic stem cells, which are obtained by killing a living human embryo. This is morally wrong, because even at the tender age of one week, an embryo is a human life that deserves to be protected. Human life is a gift, not a raw material to be used for science experiments.

Each month The Stem Cell Research Report provides terse, well-written articles for use in lobbying and education concerning stem cell research. Each issue is designed for the education of those in position to influence policy regarding stem cell research. Everyone is looking for answers and information. Click here for more information.

Where they come from

Human embryos may be obtained from fertilization or by cloning. Couples pursuing in vitro fertilization often create many embryos, which are frozen and stored for future use. Scientists hope many couples will donate the embryos left after their family is complete. They argue that these embryos should be used for research because they “are going to die anyway.” But frozen embryos, like Zara, also can be adopted by infertile couples and given a chance at life.

Embryos for research are more likely to be obtained by cloning. Cloning involves collecting human eggs from female donors, an invasive procedure with potential health risks associated with the injections given to hyperstimulate the ovaries to produce an abnormally large number of eggs. The nucleus of each egg is removed and replaced with the nucleus obtained from a cell from the person to be cloned, called a somatic cell. The cell is electrically stimulated to reproduce and develop into an embryo. This process is known as “somatic cell nuclear transfer” or SCNT.
The cloned embryo is identical in every way to an embryo produced by fertilization, even though no sperm was involved. If implanted in a woman’s uterus, the embryo could develop and ultimately produce a baby. However, embryos like these are created for one reason only—to be destroyed for scientific research. Some cloning proponents call this “therapeutic” cloning,” but the term is a misnomer. “Therapeutic” describes something that cures or helps, but this type of cloning actually kills a very young human life.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Maryland

Maryland has no laws regulating cloning or embryonic stem cell research. Right now, it is not illegal for researchers to destroy human embryos obtained through in vitro fertilization, to clone embryos to be destroyed in research, or even to attempt to implant cloned embryos.

After killing an embryo and harvesting its stem cells, scientists try to keep the cells alive and multiplying indefinitely in the laboratory. This is called a stem cell line. In August 2001, President Bush announced that the federal government would only fund research involving existing stem cell lines; federal money would not be used to fund the destruction of new human embryos. However, there are no limits on the research itself. Private investors have funded embryonic stem cell research since the early 1970s and the cloning of embryos since 1993. However, no successes from this research have been reported, and now many private investors are withdrawing financial support. With private financial support dwindling, a handful of Maryland researchers are demanding state funds to pay for these unethical and unproven experiments.

What’s wrong with embryonic stem cell research?

Despite the media hype, embryonic stem cell research offers little chance of success. Because embryonic cells are designed by God to grow and change very rapidly, they are very difficult to control in the laboratory. In animal experiments, embryonic stem calls have produced tumors and tissue rejection reactions. In more than 600 studies funded by the federal government during the past 20 years, not even one mouse has been cured of disease using embryonic stem cells. In contrast, treatments using adult stem cells have already cured many human patients, and new successes are being reported all the time. For example, researchers recently reported restoring feeling and movement in the lower limbs of a women who had been a paraplegic for nearly 20 years, and an American man who had Parkinson’s disease is nearly symptom-free three years after being treated with stem cells taken from his own body. This is the research that deserves to be supported.

What about the proposed Maryland law?

In 2005, Sen. Paula C. Hollinger (D-11) and Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-41) sponsored bills that sought $25 million to fund research that would have included cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The bill purported to ban human cloning—but it specifically stated that funds could be used for “somatic cell nuclear transfer”–the scientific name for cloning. Even worse, the bill redefined cloning to mean the birth of a cloned baby and then only banned “human cloning” as defined by the bill. This would have allowed cloned embryos to be implanted in a woman’s uterus, but it would have required that the pregnancy be aborted before the birth of the cloned baby. No time limit was placed on such implantations, so the bill potentially would allow a cloned embryo to be carried by a woman into the ninth month of pregnancy and then aborted so that entire organs could be harvested. Sen. Hollinger and Del. Rosenberg have said they will introduce the same or similar legislation early in the 2006 General Assembly. Last year, only the threat of a filibuster kept the bill from a vote. This year, everyone who believes in the sanctity of human life must stand against this dangerous proposal.

Comments by Members of the President’s Council on Bioethics

In 2005, eight members of the President’s Council on Bioethics commented on the Hollinger/Rosenberg proposed legislation and urged that the bill be defeated. They wrote: “The only limit on the use of cloned human embryos for fetal farming will be that no cloned fetus may be born alive.

“Thus the bill contemplates the creation of new members of the human species by cloning, and their cultivation from the zygote stage through the late fetal stages for the purpose of harvesting what the legislation refers to as “cadaveric” fetal tissue.

“Please pause to consider whose cadaver the tissue is to be derived from. It is the cadaver of a distinct member of the species Homo sapiens, who would be brought into being by cloning and, presumably, implanted and permitted to develop to the desired stage of physical maturation for the purpose of being killed for the harvesting of his or her tissues.”

The letter was signed by:
Robert P. George, J.D., D.Phil., Princeton University
Mary Ann Glendon, J.D., LL.M, Harvard University
Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, Dr. Phil., Georgetown University
William Hurlbut, M.D, Stanford University
Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D., Valparaiso University
Peter A. Lawler, Ph.D., Berry College
Diana J. Schaub, Ph.D., Loyola College in Maryland
Benjamin S. Carson, M.D., Johns Hopkins Medical