‘Pro-cure’ vs ‘anti-cure’

June 1, 2005

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, whose medical history makes the stem-cell debate a personal issue, has an excellent piece this week on why the ongoing political debate may be one of the most significant of the year.

My perspective could be skewed (all politics is local), but I have a gut feeling that President Bush is headed for a serious bruising on this issue, as are at least some of the 180 Republicans and 14 Democrats who voted last week against the stem-cell-research bill that passed the House. These members may look back ruefully on this vote as one that helped get them tossed out of office.

After all, every American who has a relative with one of these diseases — which means nearly every American — is beginning to understand the issue in a new way: it’s “pro-cure” versus “anti-cure,” with the anti-stem-cell folks in danger of being swept into the medical wastebin of history.

I think Alter’s absolutely right on this. The drive to undo Bush’s restrictive 2001 policy not only has the momentum, it has the support of the entire reality-based community. Some congressional Republicans were irritated when the Republican Main Street Partnership, a moderate group, conducted polls in GOP districts without alerting the relevant members, but the results of the survey were the most important detail — even Republicans in very conservative districts want to expand funding for stem-cell research and believe Bush’s policy is a mistake.

The margin of victory in the House, coupled by the soon-to-be bi-partisan success in the Senate, will create one of the starkest political controversies of Bush’s presidency. There have been plenty of partisan conflicts since the president took office, but this will be the first in which the White House is fighting a high-profile policy with broad bi-partisan support among lawmakers and the public.

The dynamic isn’t complicated. On one side will be the religious right and the movement’s inflexible and illogical demands. On the other side will be everyone else, including well-known anti-abortion lawmakers (such as Orrin Hatch and John McCain), Nancy Reagan, the entire scientific community, and every family in America with someone who has Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, a spinal cord injury, or one of the many other ailments that could be treated with stem-cell research — if only Bush would take his foot off the brake.

Will the United States be part of the most exciting medical research of our time? With global competitors poised to eat our lunch, a few private and state-funded efforts won’t be enough. “You can’t do research with your feet bound and one hand tied behind your back,” says Jerome Groopman, a professor at Harvard Medical School.

The lives of suffering people vs. the fate of a tiny clump of cells with fewer human properties than a mosquito. Bi-partisan majorities in Congress vs. a misguided White House. A portion of the far-right GOP base vs. the rest of the nation. “Pro-cure” vs “anti-cure.” The choice belongs to the president. I’m not optimistic.

Alter’s column said stem-cell research will probably “become one of the defining issues of the 2006 campaign.” It better be.

I support your position on stem cell research, but I think you make a mistake with your continued references to embryos having fewer human qualities/properties than a mosquito. I’m sure that it is true, as Michael Kinsley stated in the article you link to, that “[t]he week-old embryos used for stem-cell research are microscopic clumps of cells, unthinking and unknowing, with fewer physical human qualities than a mosquito,” but that doesn’t capture the objection to stem-cell research, and it’s misleading and insulting. If these embryos are truly less human than mosquitos, then why not use mosquitos for stem-cell research? That embryo holds the potential to become a human life. That it doesn’t yet possess many “physical human qualities” does not lessen that potential. Because the embryos that would be used for stem cell research are those that would otherwise be discarded, many people who are anti-abortion/pro-life support stem cell research. Your argument will not convince an absolutist who thinks it is wrong to use one of these embryos under any circumstance, and it insults many people who support research under existing circumstances. I enjoy your political insight and your commentaries, but every time I read one of your posts on stem cells, I cringe in anticipation of your “mosquito” observation (and you always manage to work in that nugget somewhere in the post). I’m not asking to you stop — it’s your blog — but please recognize the “crassness” of your comparison.

  • G, you raise an interesting point, so let me elaborate a bit.

    The point of the mosquito reference is to highlight the fact that embryos used in stem-cell research are not, in fact, tiny people. One member of Congress during the recent floor debate on this issue, for example, played a recording of fetal heartbeat, and declared, “This is what [the issue] all about.” Likewise, Tom DeLay said, “An embryo is a person, a distinct internally directed, self-integrating human organism.”

    By noting that these embroys have fewer human properties than a mosquito, I’m trying to emphasize the point that a blastocyst is not a tiny person and that the lawmakers’ arguments are demonstrably false. A fetus can take on human properties through the course of development, but these embryos don’t. I mention the analogy frequently because it directly undermines one of the most common — and deceptive — arguments opponents of stem-cell research make.

    Your argument…insults many people who support research under existing circumstances.

    I’m afraid I don’t see why. Those who disagree with the research and want to undermine the science believe embryos are people with rights. I’m arguing that embryos that will be discarded anyway fall far short of this standard and that arguments to the contrary are misleading. I’m sorry you find that crass and welcome suggestions as to how to make the same point in a less insulting way.

  • That it doesn’t yet possess many “physical human qualities” does not lessen that potential.

    Maybe, maybe not? Maybe a bear embryo has the potential to grow up to be the worlds first singing, talking, dancing bear. Using the reasoning that the embryo *could* become human feels to me to be just as bad as DeLay saying that its a tiny person. The reality is that maybe it could one day be a person, but right now its not, its just a clump of cells. Delaying (ha! pun!) research that could solve all kinds of the terrible diseases on a maybe just doesn’t feel like a strong argument against it? Its ok to test diseases on animals, but we don’t consider that those animals may or may not have to potential do be something truly wonderful and great, because the reality is that here in the present, they’re not singing, talking and dancing.

  • Carpetbagger — I appreciate your thoughtful response — the context helps. And I agree that the embryos/blastocysts used in stem cell research are not tiny people. I still don’t like the analogy, but it’s hard for me to explain why. Thanks for the work you do.

  • G, while I don’t share your uneasiness, I do understand it. A blastocyst is a person in the sense that it’s a human life, but not a person in the sense of viability, even recognizability, if removed from the womb. Which leads to the question: What is a person?

  • I’m sympathetic with G’s concern. Actually, there is no analogy involved here. There is a disparaging comparison … between the petri-dish human embryo and a mosquito, specifically, the embryo has fewer cells than the mosquito. G is correct in this respect: you’re talking about something which could become a full human being. Whether actually having fewer cells, or potentially being much more than a sum of cells, makes one form of life more worthwhile than another seems to be to be a matter of personal esthetics.

    Granting that, the fact remains that these embryos, already in existence but left over once the IVF couple has received theirs for implanation, will be discarded. Isn’t it simply stupid to incinerate this potentially life-saving embryo when it could be used for healing?

    Let me make another comparison (actually much closer to a genuine analogy. When a person has just died, isn’t it better to harvest the organs for the benefit of others, rather than just incinerate the corpse?

    As the receipient of four cornea transplants since 1982, I can assure you that I’m personally very glad the four donors involved didn’t let pharisaical “religious” prejudices stand the way of doing good by me.

    What Would Jesus Do? I’ve read that He healed the sick. I don’t recall Him ascribing any virtue to having humans or embryos go “whole” to their doom.

  • What a pleasure to have a serious subject debated with facts, rational argument and mutual respect. I have been immersed in stem cell policy for more then five years now, our youngest child suffers from juvenile onset diabetes. As I studied the relevant research I became convinced that our science is rapidly running back the clock on pre implantation development. For just one example it is now considered possible that a stem cell line itself could be utilized to generate an embryo from which other stem cell lines could be derived. My conclusion is that in the not too distance future the embryo will be considered just another step in the developmental process and the “originâ€? point will be considered to exist somewhere within the egg itself. Recall that it was only about 150 years ago that the Catholic Church rejected with finality the more orthodox view that full personhood began after 40 days in the womb and adopted the moment when sperm fertilizes the egg as the point of ensoulment. In any event for the purposes of this argument I believe that Orrin Hatch has it right when he states that “life does not begin in a Petri dishâ€?.

  • AYM and Edo,

    So, when Terry Schiavo passed into a persistent vegetative state she was no longer a human being? Is that where you are going?

  • Up or down vote. That’s all I want. Up or down vote. By the House, by the Senate, by the people. Any way one slices it, stem cell research passes. Funny how democracy by the majority and an up or down vote to decide things gets kicked aside on issues that the far right finds unappealing. Up or down vite that’s all I ask and this issue deserves it.

  • Speaking as someone who has no problem with being pro-cure, I’d like to suggest that framing the dialogue on this with the terms “pro-cure or anti-cure” could be really useful to the Dems. In recent years, we have let the Repubs pick the questions and put them into simple terms so that we have become known as the pro-abortion, anti-church party. If we start talking up the Republicans being the anti-cure party, it finally puts them on the defensive about something. I still remember being impressed reading schattschneider in politics 101 where he made the point that the person who frames the debate wins. Because he was right.

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