After more than six years of increasingly polarized debate, the United States remains one of the few major countries lacking national policies addressing human cloning, stem cell research and other new genetic and reproductive technologies.
We can ill afford to wait longer.
The deadlock exists because the constituencies that are most politically active on these issues are unwilling to consider the sorts of middle-ground positions that would allow legislation to pass.
Religious conservatives want all cloning banned, whether for reproduction or research, as well as any research involving the destruction of human embryos. The biomedical research and industrial community agrees that reproductive cloning should be banned but wants a free hand to create human embryos for research, and has resisted meaningful oversight.
Both sides sincerely believe they are standing for fundamental principles that cannot be compromised. Religious conservatives cite the sanctity of the human embryo. Biomedical researchers cite the paramount importance of the scientific quest for knowledge and the moral obligation to prevent suffering from disease.
One unfortunate result of the policy stalemate at the federal level is that individual states are now rushing to establish lavishly funded human embryo research programs of their own. California approved a $3 billion program last fall, and at least 10 other states are establishing their own programs.
These programs are being promoted by legislators with only a partial understanding of the issues at stake. While stem cell research certainly deserves public funding, the state programs are committing more resources than is justified, and are doing so with grossly inadequate ethical and regulatory oversight.
There is still time to agree on principles that can guide research involving human cloning, stem cells and embryos, whether at the state or federal levels. But it will require that all sides acknowledge certain realities.
Religious conservatives need to realize that the American people are willing to support some forms of research using human embryos, if the research offers real prospects for beneficial results and is effectively regulated. Conservatives also need to realize that most Americans support legal abortion, and that attempts to use public concern over cloning to support anti-abortion policies will backfire.
The biotech researchers, for their part, need to realize that most Americans are uncomfortable treating human embryos as “just a clump of cells.” Neither are Americans willing to entrust the genetic future of the human species to the whims of individual scientists, fertility clinic operators, and the profit-driven biotech industry.
In the debate over human cloning, both religious conservatives and the biotech industry have opposed creating effective regulatory structures. Conservatives believe that their very existence would legitimize research they believe to be immoral. The biotech industry opposes effective regulation for the reasons that industries always do: to fend off potential constraints on their ability to make a buck.
But what is the alternative? In 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger was killed by a gene therapy experiment that never should have been conducted. In 2001, Advanced Cell Technologies in Massachusetts began creating clonal embryos under wraps of corporate secrecy. In 2003, Craig Venter used off-the-shelf DNA to construct an artificial virus, free of any public oversight. And in 2004, Korean scientists created the first viable clonal human embryos, with eggs obtained from female “donors” under questionable circumstances.
We can and must do better. Establishment of a national regulatory structure affords a way – perhaps the only way – for people of good faith to work together to agree on rules that we all can live with.
Working models for such structures are close at hand. In 1991, the United Kingdom established the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority. In 2002, Australia set up a similar structure. And last year, after intense public consultation, Canada passed landmark legislation establishing the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada.
The laws that established these agencies ban certain practices, such as reproductive cloning or creation of human/animal chimeras, and affirm others, notably those that help infertile people and those for medical research. All require public review and approval before controversial experiments can begin.
Six years ago, cloning, stem cells and the new genetic and reproductive technologies were barely visible on the public policy horizon. Now, biotech researchers and entrepreneurs are seeking to raise billions of dollars for genetic technology research, almost all of it from taxpayers. We urgently need federal legislation that will allow us to reap the benefits and avoid the dangers of these profoundly consequential technologies. It’s time for responsible leaders to take steps to break the policy deadlock.
Richard Hayes is executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, based in Oakland, Calif.
