Proceed with Caution

There has been substantial campus-wide outrage at Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s recent proposal to limit certain kinds of embryonic stem cell research. The governor’s proposal has alternately been derided as short-sighted, idiotic, or merely part of a cynical ploy to gain conservative credentials for a presidential run in 2008.

Exceedingly few voices have defended the governor on the broader issue of limiting stem cell research. This is partly because of the increasing tendency of proponents of such research to label opponents as wanting to arbitrarily restrict “scientific inquiry” or to selfishly limit the “understanding of human diseases.” Phrases such as these take the debate outside of the confines of stem cells and place it in territory that is either disingenuous– the accusation of being against “progress”—or entirely demagogical—the accusation that opponents of stem cell research are against people such as Christopher Reeve walking again.

The accusations commonly made against opponents of stem cell research are really quite beside the point. Romney does not seek to limit “scientific inquiry” in its entirety, but rather an extremely specific and controversial part of it. Romney is not interested in preventing kids from learning about Darwin in high school biology, nor is he interested in limiting the nuclear physics taking place at MIT. He does not even seek to stop researchers from studying and utilizing human embryos. What he in fact seeks to do is prevent the creation of a human life with the express intention of destroying it.

The human embryos that Romney would allow to be utilized in research were created under moral circumstances very different that the ones whose use he would ban. Embryos from fertility clinics are the leftovers of an effort to create a functioning human being: a baby boy or a baby girl that the two parents were otherwise incapable of begetting on their own. Thus while our society has, in the words of Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School Dan W. Brock, “accepted the principle that some embryos won’t be used for reproduction,” the embryos from fertility clinics at the very least were created in the hope of reproduction. The embryos that Harvard is so insistent on creating have not the slightest hint of any other purpose aside from their destruction for research, a fairly obvious moral difference from fertility clinic embryos and perhaps even the “ethical boundary” to which Gov. Romney alluded.

Proponents of the research now under debate should retain more of the nuance they claim is theirs alone, and lose the arbitrariness for which they chastise their opponents. They also should be aware that although they think that the relevant “ethical issues” have been resolved, the “careful review” that has taken place so far is not sufficient. I, and others like me who oppose the creation of embryos for research purposes, yearn just as earnestly for the day when Alzheimer’s, cancer, and diabetes have all been relegated to the list of ailments we no longer fear. Fundamentally, both sides wish to see advances in medical science and both sides recognize the potential of stem cell treatment. What needs to occur is a forthright debate over the exact nature of the research that is permissible, not another fruitless battle of the forces of “science” against those of “ignorance” and “superstition.”

Mark A. Adomanis ’07, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator living in Eliot House.