Editorials, Opinion Pieces Respond To Obama's Executive Order Lifting Restrictions On Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Main Category: Stem Cell Research
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 17 Mar 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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Newspapers recently published editorials and opinion pieces on President Obama's executive order to reverse Bush administration restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. Summaries appear below.

~ New York Times: Limiting federal support to stem cells derived from surplus embryos from fertility clinics "would be a mistake," a Times editorial says, adding that "guidelines should define the eligible research as broadly as possible to allow the greatest potential for advances." The editorial says that "Obama seems open to the possibility of moving beyond the surplus embryos," adding that he "gave the National Institutes of Health free rein" to determine guidelines for federally supported research. The editorial notes that one approach -- called somatic cell nuclear transfer -- could be used to "obtain the matched cells needed to study diseases" by using a "cell from an adult afflicted with that disease to create a genetically matched embryo and extract its stem cells." The Times adds that this "approach ... is difficult" and that "no one has yet done it." Another approach, called induced pluripotent stem cells, is said to be "the most promising" by some experts "for moral and practical reasons." The editorial continues, "Even so, work on genetically matched embryonic stem cells would still be important," concluding, "When the NIH sets the rules for federally financed research, the main criterion should be whether a proposal has high scientific merit" (New York Times, 3/16).

~ Washington Post: Obama's decision to lift some of the restrictions was "only a partial decision," and while he "decreed that federal funding of such research could go forward on a much broader scale," he did not say "whether it could proceed on stem cells derived from embryos created specifically for the purpose of research," a Post editorial says. It continues, "Mr. Obama is right to turn to scientists for advice on the matter, but he should not hide behind them in making the ultimate decision." According to the Post, Obama accepted the argument that the field of embryonic stem cell research was "too young to close off any avenue and that the embryonic lines available under Mr. Bush's order had proved too limiting;" however, he "shunned a possible compromise: to allow research on stem cell lines grown from embryos that were created in fertility laboratories but never implanted." The editorial continues, "If the scientists so believe, they can present reasons why existing frozen embryos aren't enough -- why research would benefit from having embryos created." However, the editorial argues, "it's not the job of the scientist to decide whether those reasons outweigh concerns about such a practice," adding, "That's the president's job." It concludes, "He should listen to the scientists' arguments, make his decision and -- as Mr. Bush did in 2001 -- explain it to the American people" (Washington Post, 3/15).

~ Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe: The debate over Obama's decision to lift some restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research has "hinged on the moral status of the embryo," or, "[t]o be more precise, it hinged on the status of a spare embryo," columnist Goodman writes in an opinion piece. "Since most people are rightly queasy about creating new embryos just to destroy them, researchers looked to the embryos languishing in clinic freezers after couples finished in vitro fertilization treatment," Goodman writes, adding that this "brought the argument over the value of life into morally ambiguous territory." She writes that most Americans "came to agree that it was better to let embryos be used in pursuit of a cure than to remain in an icy limbo." The "intriguing thing is that while this heated debate went on, there was a virtual silence on the question of what should happen to the vast majority of frozen embryos that will never be used for either fertility or research," Goodman writes, adding that the "public wrangling barely included the people most involved in private decisions: the couples who created these embryos." The "good news for stem cell researchers," she says, is that 60% of couples with frozen embryos that were not going to be implanted were "likely or very likely to donate" them to research, according to a survey of patients. However, "we may not need more than a small fraction" of donated embryos, and if the case of 33-year-old Nadya Suleman, who recently gave birth to octuplets via infertility treatments, "is any lesson, ... doctors will be implanting fewer embryos and end up with more spares," Goodman writes. She continues that developments in adult stem cells could further reduce the need for stem cells. "We are heading for a population explosion in the freezer," she writes, adding, "We should, finally, begin a real conversation about the responsibility for these 'unintended consequences'" (Goodman, Boston Globe, 3/13).

~ Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post: Obama "pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts" when he lifted Bush administration restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research, columnist Krauthammer writes in an opinion piece. Krauthammer writes that although he opposed Bush's policy, Obama's policy is a "clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end." Obama leaves this issue "entirely to the scientists," Krauthammer writes, adding that "given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn." In addition, the "ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on 'restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making'" in the signing ceremony implied that Obama is "guided solely by science" and that Bush was "driven by dogma, ideology and politics," Krauthammer says, adding that the implication is an "outrage." Krauthammer adds that Obama's "pretense that he will 'restore science to its rightful place' and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand -- this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically 'scientific,'" concluding that Obama "clearly has not" thought about human embryonic stem cell research (Krauthammer, Washington Post, 3/13).

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