Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2007 / Breakthrough ends case for killing embryos for stem cell research
Breakthrough ends case for killing embryos for stem cell research
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 30, 2007
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The Science of Stem Cells: Finding Cures and Protecting Life
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Michigan diocesan bishops, as teachers of the faith, have launched an unprecedented education program to teach the Catholic faithful about the relationship between stem-cell research and the Catholic teaching on human life. | Detroit — News that scientists have been able to reprogram skin cells to function like embryonic stem cells was hailed as bringing to an end any possible medical case for killing human embryos, said local pro-life advocates and Church representatives.
And the development should also put an end to proposed legislation in the Michigan House of Representatives that would allow researchers to kill cloned human embryos, said Right to Life of Michigan legislative director Ed Rivet.
"The days of killing embryos to harvest stem cells is over. It's time to put this unethical research and this irrelevant legislation on the scrap heap of history. We're ecstatic that the focus of research will now be on stem-cell techniques that will bring breakthrough cures as quickly as possible," Rivet said.
Dave Maluchnik,director of communications for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said, "Not only does this significant advancement have the potential to free up federal dollars for continued research, it also presents the opportunity for those on both sides of the issue to move forward together without the need to clone or kill human embryos."
The MCC is the public policy voice of all seven Michigan dioceses.
Janet Smith, Ph.D., who holds the Fr. Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, called the development "a great victory for the Culture of Life."
She called it "encouraging" that one of the researchers involved was Dr. James A. Thomson, the scientist who first pioneered killing embryonic human beings to acquire embryonic stem cells.
"He was never happy that such killing was necessary and continued to seek an 'uncontroversial' — and let us say moral — way of obtaining embryonic stem cells," Smith said, adding, "Those who have been pressing for funding of research that involves killing embryos should no longer receive a hearing."
Jean Peduzzi-Nelson, Ph.D, a professor and researcher at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, called the development "wonderful news," and said it was significant that the findings "came from prominent researchers at excellent universities.
The development not only impacts the argument for killing human embryos, but also the argument for cloning human embryos, she said.
Two problems that have plagued the use of embryonic stem cells have been rejection and overgrowth – that is, tumor formation, Peduzzi-Nlson explained, with advocates of embryonic stem cell research also seeking to clone human embryos to overcome the rejection problem.
Reprogramming a person's own skin cells will solve the rejection problem, although the tumor-formation problem could remain, she said.
But whether the use of the reprogrammed cells is the best use of research money remains another question.
Peduzzi-Nelson was one of the experts who appeared on "Stem Cells: Finding Cures and Protecting Life" DVD sent last month to every registered Catholic family in Michigan. In it, she spoke of the results that have been achieved using adult stem cells, and said, "I believe adult stem cells are the safest and probably most effective for treatment."
Smith lamented that "some scientists have been in such a hurry that they could not wait for a moral method of producing/acquiring embryonic stem cells."
"That hurry has benefited us not at all and been expensive in too many ways. To date, not one cure has resulted from research on embryonic stems cells, research that has cost thousands of embryos their lives, has used up millions of dollars of research money, and has occupied legislators and divided the nation," she said.
"Simply because we have a moral way of obtaining embryonic stem cells, does not necessarily make the funding of that research an intelligent use of available research funds," Smith added.
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