It’s no surprise that Americans are confused. The election could be decided by stem cells and cloning, complex scientific issues that most people don’t pretend to understand, and that divide within as well as between the parties.

The press has hardly helped by presenting this as round two of the abortion debate. And the president’s carefully crafted principled compromise, which back in August of 2001 drew the ire of many conservatives who saw it as a sell-out, is being portrayed as an “extremist” pro-life position backed only by the “theology of a few,” in Ron Reagan Jr.’s infamous phrase.

Let’s add to the confusion and share some facts: that George W. Bush is the first president ever to fund embryo research of any kind; that “therapeutic cloning” – the holy grail of medicine, according to candidate Kerry – has recently been made a serious criminal offence in such generally liberal countries as Australia, Canada, and France; and that the specifics of the Bush embryo stem-cell funding policy were almost adopted last year as the policy of the European Union, and are exactly mirrored in Germany’s liberalized stem cell law.

And now we have Tom Harkin, Democratic senator who has worked hand-in-hand with Republican Arlen Specter, to undermine Bush's stem-cell research policy and prevent a cloning ban. Harkin lays out his case with stark clarity. His recent Senate speech deserves to be memorialized in the cheap ethics hall of fame alongside Ron Reagan Jr.’s disingenuous “theology of a few.” As we review it, we need to remember that these guys keep telling us they are “pro-science;” they keep telling us that they are in favor of the truth; and, increasingly, they claim that it is they who are “really” pro-life, since they believe in “cures.”

Harkin’s speech is worth quoting, so we get the full effect. It is one of the most outrageous speeches ever made on the floor of the US Senate, so full of disingenuous, twisted half-truths that it is hard to know where to start. There are decent, honorable, arguments in favor of destroying embryos for stem cell research. They are flawed, as I myself argued when I testified before Senator Harkin’s committee a couple of years ago. But this is not one of those arguments. Instead, we have a mish-mash of ethical garbage that uses language to fudge the truth and bring disgrace to democracy.

Now, there are those who say, well, we can't destroy these embryos because it's life. Now this is something I have done before in my committee, and I did it once with Chris Reeve there, and he kind of liked it, so I'll do it again in his memory. I have here a pen and a blank piece of paper. There. I hold this up, and I ask if anyone can see what I put on that piece of paper. What I've just put on that piece of paper is a dot, a little dot. That is the size of the embryos that we're taking the stem cells from. A dot that you can barely see on a piece of paper. People say, well, that's life. Of course it's life. Every cell has life. All my skin cells have life. The cells in my hair follicles have life. Sperm has life. Eggs have life. But they say we can't destroy these for stem cell research. They equate this little dot that you can barely see with someone like Chris Reeve. This is what we're taking the stem cells from, that little dot.

Just let that marinate in your mind for a few minutes. Tom Harkin here invokes the memory of a courageous man who has only just died, and “in his memory” parades his cheapest shots. I was present when Christopher Reeve himself testified before the Senate, and while he made the memorably dangerous statement that “the duty of government is to do the greatest good for the greatest number” (a statement that confirmed my view that Reeve was as serious about his ethics as he was naïve), he spoke movingly and with integrity.

Harkin took a different tack. First, he pointed out a fact generally well-known: that human embryos are small. Using a kindergarten technique to make his point, he displayed his embryo-size dot in a grand-standing appeal to the unscientific prejudice of his audience. To suggest that the size of the embryo – or of any object – is its most significant aspect implies a thoroughly pre-scientific view of the world. Quite apart from human genetics and embryology, which have – as every PBS viewer knows – decoded the extraordinary complexity of the complete and self-organizing being that we know as a human embryo, the Senate recently approved nearly four billion dollars of spending on nanotechnology. For the uninitiated: a nanometer is one billionth of a meter, so there are hundreds of them in a dot on a paper of paper. We are already able to manipulate matter and even build tiny machines on the nanoscale. Of course the embryo is the size of a dot; but what’s in the dot? It’s a human dot. It's exactly what a human looks like at that stage of development.

I am reminded of a science fiction story about a great civilization under threat that elects to send its brightest and best far away to a distant planet in the hope that they will thrive anew. We read of thousands upon thousands of the most carefully-selected trooping into great space ships and blasting off on their long journey to another solar system. Then the scene switches to a home on planet earth. A man discovers a strange metal ball in his yard, and sees hoards of minute creatures spilling from the ball onto his garden. Instead of seeing it as a spaceship filled with thousands of carefully selected beings just arriving from another planet, he quickly reaches for the insecticide.

Harkin’s second approach goes beyond the disingenuous into the deceptive. He says about the dot that “it’s life.” And then he jumps to the statement that every cell has life, including those in his skin and hair follicles. The early embryo, in other words, has life in the same way as any cell. This statement is of course unscientific. The human "dot" is a particular collection of cells that, given nothing other than a congenial environment and appropriate nutrition, will grow into someone who could be elected to the US Senate. Tom Harkin was once an embryo. He was never an egg cell or a sperm cell, he was never a skin or hair cell, but he was a human dot, and everything he now is has unfolded from that dot-sized member of the human species. A dot-sized member of the human species is already someone’s son or daughter, perhaps someone’s sibling, and if the processes of biological development are not impeded, in due time someone’s spouse and parent. It is in the nature of mammalian reproduction that we spring into existence as tiny genetically-complete beings.

Harkin goes on to locate the “dots” he wants to use for experiments in the freezers of test-tube baby clinics. But the pattern of disingenuity continues. For the “therapeutic cloning” model that people like Harkin are seeking does not depend on “spare” frozen embryos at all. In fact, it requires, specifically, the use of cloning to mass-produce hundreds of millions of embryos, so that individuals can have the hyped-for one-on-one medications, made to measure from the patient’s embryonic twin.

All in all, Harkin’s speech offers a tour de force of disingenuity. And, of course, if you are a Christian, looking forward to the feast of the incarnation, you will know that when Mary conceived in her virgin womb she conceived a dot. God became a dot, for all of us and for our salvation.

To drive his point home Harkin leveraged his message by referencing the death of actor Christopher Reeve by asking which deserves more consideration - something the size of the dot or Christopher Reeve?

A "dot" is exactly what a human looks like at that stage of development.

'If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." John Edwards

This week on Fox News the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Charles Krauthammer (who lost the use of his legs in a car accident at age 22) had this to say about John Edwards' comments regarding the death of actor Christopher Reeve and the Bush administration's policy on embryonic stem cell research: "I've heard a lot of hype over the last 30 years about the keys to the kingdom here in this issue. And all of them have proved false. For Edwards to make the claims he did is the worst demagoguery I've heard in Washington in a quarter century. To imply that Christopher Reeve was kept in the wheelchair because of the policies of the Bush administration on stem cells is ridiculous and insulting."

Charles Krauthammer
"Special Report," FNC, 10/11

The Embryo Adoption Option: Who says they will all go down the drain?

Solving the problem of infertility has created a new set of challenges. Couples using the process of in vitro fertilization often end up with more embryos than can be implanted at the time of their creation. These surplus embryos can be frozen and put into limbo until the couple decides their fate.

The vocabulary used to describe the couple's decision gives insight into the underlying purpose behind their creation and the moral status they ascribe to the embryo. Those who do not wish for more children, but still have frozen embryos stored in a laboratory may put them up for adoption, or donate them for research. It all depends on whether the couple sees the embryo as a person or as their property.

While the debate over embryonic stem cell research rages on, many advocates of ESCR claim that most of the embryos currently in storage will be flushed down a drain. Last week Senator Harkin distorted the facts in his strident plea on the Senate floor to make embryos widely available for research.

Now, we already have over 400,000 of these little dots that you can barely see frozen. They are left over from in vitro fertilization. Guess what happens folks; these little dots are in test tubes frozen with liquid nitrogen. When the donors don't want them any longer because they have had their children, or they don't want to have children any longer, or they call up and say, we don't want those saved any longer and guess what? The test tube is cleaned out and washed down the sink. It's either throw these valuable embryos away, or use them for stem cell research.

Harkin didn't do his homework. A recent report by the Rand Corporation detailing the status of the known 400,000 frozen embryos found that the vast majority are designated for future attempts for pregnancy. Only 2.8% (11,000) frozen embryos have been designated for research.

Senator Harkin also conspicuously omitted the fact that embryo adoption is growing trend. Pro-choice advocates get squimish with the term embryo adoption preferring instead the term embryo donation. They know that the difference in terminology has implications for reproductive medicine and the abortion debate as well. Parents adopt embryos, research labs do not.

Reflecting this trend, in 1997, Nightlight Christian Adoptions™ began the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program. Since its inception, they have had 94 families undergo embryo transfer procedures with 51 giving birth to 62 babies. Their mission is to help some of the more than 400,000 frozen embryos realize their ultimate purpose – life – while sharing the hope of a child with an infertile couple.

How Many Embryos Does it Take to Make A Clone?

The business of cloning will turn the women of the developing world into a human egg factory

Ron Reagan made headlines for his speech to the DNC by alluding to the rosy future of medicine when the practice of therapeutic cloning (though he didn't use the term) will afford everyone their "own personal medical toolkit". That's code for: when everyone can clone themselves to create a genetically matched embryo from which they can derive stem cells on an as needed basis.

Apart from the science, that is speculative at best, somebody better do the math! Current research suggests that it would take a minimum of 100 eggs per patient, at a cost of $100.000 - $200,000.

In his Senate testimony last month, Dr. David Prentice cites Dr. Peter Mombaerts, one of the first mouse cloners, estimation that it will require a minimum of 100 eggs to create even one cell line. The reported first cloning of a human embryo in South Korea this year actually required 242 eggs to obtain just one ES cell line.

Dr. Prentice testifies that embryonic stem cell research is highly problematic while adult stem cells have been shown by the published evidence to be a more promising alternative for patient treatments. He cites credible evidence that adult stem cells hold real hope for finding new cures. "Adult stem cells have proven success in the laboratory dish, in animal models of disease, and in current clinical treatments. Adult stem cells also avoid problems with tumor formation, transplant rejection, and provide realistic excitement for patient treatments."

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