to put the problem very clearly,you destroy human life in order to save human lives. that puts the finger on the problemin a sort of brutal way because you cannot denythat you destroy the blastocyst. so in a sense you destroya potential human life. the status of humanity and human lifehas been the subject of thought and debate and discussionfor millennia really. our philosophical approaches owe a lot to aristotle and aquinas.
they recognised that there wassomething special about the human being, but they weren't sure when that specialnessor when the personhood came into being. few would denythe potential for medical research from researchinto embryonic and adult stem cells. the big ethical question is:should we be using embryos to do this? what is the moral statusof the early human embryo? is it fully a person or what? the catholic church, when it looksat embryonic stem cell research,
sees the same issues in placeas there are in abortion. it is all about when life begins and what protectionwe offer to all human beings. we can never set asidea subset of humanity and say they are not deserving of protection. the islamic perspective of the status of the embryo, i would think you could recognisefour different stages. firstly, the embryo outside the womb,
then the embryowhen it is implanted into the womb, then a gestation of six to eight weeks when the foetus is fully formed, and finally, most importantly, is 120 days after conception when ensoulment takes place, and that is a very important milestone. for some people,the early embryo has no status and it is a matter of dutythat you should be doing research
in order to save human life. the scalesweigh very heavily on one side. the opposite position isthat there is no balance at all because you cannot do research onwhat is seen as being a human being. in between these twothere is a question of balance. how far would you be justified in destroyingwhat could be a human being if you created the right conditionsfor the embryo to be implanted but you nonetheless decidedto do research on it instead?
what justifies research? the sanctity of life and the protection of the embryoare not the only values. those who sufferfrom incurable diseases, they also have intereststhat need to be looked after and there is a moral obligationto cure diseases, to relieve sufferingand to restore health. i have parkinson's disease and that may one day be treatable
by the applicationsof stem cell research and i think that the broader issueis about getting society into a better, more healthy perspective. allowing people to live their full livesin their families with the benefit of good medicinewherever that may come from. everything changes when somebodyhas one of these disorders. it is not just the patientthat is suffering. the whole familygets drawn into the problem as well and i think it is incumbent upon usto try and find a solution
that benefits the patientand the wider family as well. if we consider the suffering of people with diabetes, parkinson's, alzheimer's and a few other,so far incurable diseases, then...especially diabetes is a large group. these are diseases almost everybodyknows somebody who suffers from, so there is a big potentialto actually cure diseases that have never been curablein the past.
we can't ever find something that can counterbalancethe direct killing of a life, and when we destroy an embryoto get embryonic stem cells that is exactly what we do.we must protect all life. i know from my own experienceof becoming disabled that it is very easy to look at asituation through one set of spectacles, then when you are given another set ofspectacles you see it all differently. we would pay a price ofworking on some human embryos but the benefit would come backin the treatment of society itself.
but there is always a cost,and whatever scientists want to do, it is much easierif we accept there is a cost and get on with itin a carefully regulated context. while the question of how we beginas a human being and how we develop is an old issue, it was only when embryosbecame available outside the womb that the present questions became asked, and this led the government to set upthe warnock committee in the 1980s, which looked in considerable detailat the moral and ethical issues
surrounding the human embryo and to what extent researchmight or might not be permitted. single-celled embryos, most of these, most of our fertilised embryos,don't end up as babies at all. they are lost at an early stage beforeyou would even notice you were pregnant. those embryos that are fertilisedand do go on to become babies may not become just one babybut two or more. they can be identical twins or triplets. so what we have at the beginning of theembryonic development, fertilisation,
is something that could beno, one, two or more babies. so i think it is very difficultto call that a person. the main conclusionof the warnock committee was that the human embryo deserves morerespect than that given to human tissues, but should not be given the respectdue to actual persons until about 14 days, and after 14 daysa so called primitive streak begins. here is the beginning of sentience,consciousness, the beginning of organs and beyond this pointone should therefore not research.
the majority view was that you could use surplus embryosfrom ivf treatments to do research. during in vitro fertilisationthe eggs are fertilised in a dish, and there they can developto what's called the blastocyst stage. they can't develop into a baby withoutbeing transferred into a woman's body and then implanted in the womb. embryonic stem cellsare made from these early blastocysts, which consist of around 100-200 cellsand are no bigger than a grain of sand. during the ivf procedures
there are a number of extra embryos which are not implanted into the mother and are actually kept frozenin special freezers. for example, in many countriesthere are many thousands, even 30 or 50 thousandover-exceeding embryos which are kept in these freezers, and basically they are kept therefor ever and ever without any use. you have on the one hand an embryo
which would otherwise be thrown away or stored indefinitely, and on the other hand peoplewho almost everybody knows who suffer from really debilitatingand serious diseases. so for me that is a big argument in favour of using embryonic stem cells. there is also the danger of hype. we talkas if the therapy was almost there and i think there is a long way to gobefore we have a functioning therapy.
it is one thing to be able to growa dopamine-producing cell and another thing to implant it in the brain of a patientsuffering from parkinson's in such a way that it is safe, that itgrows and that it cures the disease. we have been working with parkinson'samong other neurological diseases for many years. what we have done,starting almost 20 years ago now, is experiments using human fetal tissue. they can produce dopamine
and you can have functional effects and improve patients, some with dramatic improvement. and this is some kind of proofof concept studies, which of course are promising or form a promising basisfor the stem cell therapies. there are many attempts nowto generate large numbers of dopamine neurons from stem cellsto transplant in patients. you can see hugedevelopments and improvements.
not quickly, not next week,but there is a long-term benefit for people with parkinson's disease,like i have. what we are doing nowis to prepare for the next step, namely to developa stem-cell-based therapy, which i think is several years ahead because we don't really knowwhat is the best stem-cell source to produce dopamine yet. one of the thingsthat is problematic about the debate is that it focuses so much on the status ofthe embryo and the rights of the embryo
and so littleon the needs of the patients and so little on the access tothe treatments and the justice question. who pays and who benefits? and then of course there are questionsthat have to do with commercialisation and intellectual property rights, patentability of stem cellsand stem-cell lines. there are a variety of issuesthat need to be discussed and need to be discussed early. when i look at the legislation in europe,
there are some countries which forbidembryonic stem cell research but they allow abortion and they allow contraceptive pills,for example, and i think that ethicsshould strive to be consistent. in italy, abortion is allowed so it is not clear why there should be so much emphasis nowon embryonic stem cells. we do not understand exactlywhy the law should be so restrictive.
this is creating a sort of public fear,even within the scientific community, to the point thatthere are very few groups in italy that are workingon human embryonic stem cells. to my knowledgethere are only three groups, although there are groups thatare working on embryonic stem cells, but in a more hidden way. they don't want tosay it openly and publicly. i think this is a big damage
that one could do to science, because in this way scienceis not open, it is not free. definitely this is influencing the development of scienceand also the perception of science. the countrieswhich have a restrictive point of view towards embryonic stem cell research... how will they react if and when the countrieswhich have permissive legislation will finally find
the possible treatmentsfor the patients? they should not be ableto forbid their patients from using the therapies. the patients should havethe freedom to choose where they want to be treated and whatkind of treatment they want to receive. the uk regulatory framework in thehuman fertilisation and embryology act has worked very hardto take on board all of these issues. not just the original ones but the newones raised by stem cells and cloning. and what you have got is a regulatoryframework respected across the world,
but also challengedbecause for many it goes too far. so if you are a scientist watching this, just simply having the lawallow you to do things isn't the only questionyou should be asking yourself. ethically, what should i do? should i be saying "yes"to cloned embryos or creating embryos even if the law allows it? these arenot questions that are uncontroversial. regulation, we believe, does not absolve peoplefrom the activities they pursue.
they have to thinkthrough the issues themselves. is what i am doing ethical? is it good? it may seem like a good objective but am i using good means? sometimes these discussionsbecome so theoretical. a hundred healthy peopleare sitting there discussing the ethical aspectsof stem cell research. when you see these patientswho have severe diseases... i have seen patients who come to me
when they are young with minor signs, and you see this chronic degeneration. within a period of 10 yearsor even shorter they are just... they just cannot move, they are just dying. so if this would help the patients, i think on balance it is justified to use the stem cells. but you need to thinkabout these issues for yourself
and take personal responsibility, because when we talkabout public morality, when we talk about public spending, then we cannot avoidtalking about consequences. and the consequences are alwaysconsequences for someone. what would be the consequencesof this, that or the other option for your children,their children and grandchildren? what sort of world would you wantto hand over to them? think about thatand then make up your mind.
speaking as a gynaecologistand a muslim, i would personally advocate the useof stem cell technology research, provided that the embryos are obtained according to the ethics of sharia law. i am a catholic i was brought up to respect life fromthe very moment that it was created. stem cell research in my eyes is the ending of a human being's lifeand that is always wrong. i would like to see stem cell researchprovide a solution
that would be a full-time curefor people with parkinson's disease. embryonic stem cells know how to do every singlecell type of the body organism. so all secrets are there,we just have to discover them. we are now talking about therapies that could become useful treatments for patientswhere we have very little to offer. my personal point of view is that it is the patient's voicethat should be heard
and they should be reallyinvolved in the decision-making. i would be unhappy about the idea ofsimply creating an embryo for stem cells. it seems to be too instrumental. but to use onethat is going to be destroyed because it is no longer neededin ivf treatment seems appropriate. i am both a christian and a scientist and i think that weighing up the potential benefitsof embryonic stem cell research against the idea
that single-celled embryos are not really equivalent to a person, with the same rightsas an adult or a baby, then i think that embryonicstem cell research is justified. subtitling by subs hamburg
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