Thursday, August 28, 2008

Re: Cell Breakthrough   [Stephen Spruiell]

Mona and Yuval, interesting that you should flag that story just as I was writing a follow-up to my post about the stem-cell debate that broke out here in Minneapolis last night. The Republican Platform Committee finished work on the platform, but not before amending it to call for a full ban on all embryonic stem-cell research. The stem-cell plank now reads, in full:

Taxpayer-funded medical research must be based on sound science, with a focus on both prevention and treatment, and in accordance with the humane ethics of the Hippocratic Oath. In that regard, we call for a major expansion of support for the stem-cell research that now shows amazing promise and offers the greatest hope for scores of diseases – with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells – without the unethical destruction of embryonic human life. We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes. [emph. added]

That "or" was what set off the debate last night, and it is more important than it looks. It changes the platform so that it calls for a ban on embryonic stem-cell research even if the embryos were originally created for non-research purposes, such as infertility treatments.

It might surprise you to learn that the delegate who fought the hardest against the language was pro-life attorney James Bopp Jr. (you can find a full account of the debate here). I interviewed Bopp after the debate and asked him why he opposed the change. He said:

I strongly favor protecting human infants in research and from intentional destruction, from experimentation that results in their death. I think the amendment inadvertently could be read to ask that therapeutic research that would involve human embryos be prohibited. And therapeutic research, that is research that is done on human subjects for their benefit, is under certain circumstances appropriate.

I asked Bopp to explain what he meant. Could therapeutic research actually be performed on an embryo for its own benefit? He said:

There are no current research projects that would be therapeutic for a human embryo, but it is perfectly conceivable that there will be. An example would be altering DNA that has genetic markers for a serious disease. If that becomes possible, and it certainly could become possible at some point in time, someone's going to have to do it the first time. And when they do it the first time it's going to be therapeutic for the embryo involved, but it is also going to be experimental.

All therapies have at some point been experimental and were done on a human being. But as long as it's only done for that human embryo's benefit is it ethical or moral, and it is that research that I was concerned that this language may inadvertently affect.

After talking to Bopp, I ran into some top staffers from the Family Research Council who were celebrating the change. I explained Bopp's position to them. They told me that Bopp's explanation would be more convincing had he not also argued forcefully against changing the platform's stem-cell language in 2004. The 2004 Republican Platform was in accord with President Bush's policy of providing limited federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. The FRC staffers I talked to said that Bopp argued at the time that the platform shouldn't contradict the candidate.

Putting aside the question of whether Bopp was trying to do the same thing here, i.e. protect McCain, and just looking at his argument, it seems absurd to me that the delegates weren't able to work out some sort of compromise on this. Bopp's stated position — against all research on embryos that is not for their own benefit — doesn't really seem that hard to accommodate. A platform-committee staffer told me privately that he was dismayed at the way it had gone down. Delicate compromises over platform language should happen at the subcommittee level, he said, not in full committee with C-SPAN cameras and reporters everywhere.

08/28 10:29 AMShare