Articles

CULTURE & COSMOS
March 22, 2005 Volume 2, Number 33

Culture of Life Sponsors Major Rome Conference on Cloning and Stem Cells

A conference sponsored in part by the Culture of Life Foundation and held in Rome attracted 26 prominent scholars, philosophers, scientists and legal experts from around the world to address the issues surrounding stem cell research and human cloning.

"The Global State of Stem Cells and Cloning in Science, Ethics and Law," took place at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University March 7-8. Presentations were given on the latest scientific advances and debate was held on some of the thorniest ethical questions of the day. Two of the presenters, Dr. William Hurlbut and Dr. Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, are members of the President's Council on Bioethics and two others serve the Council in an advisory role.

In a presentation providing an overview of the scientific issues, Dr. Maureen Condic of the University of Utah spoke on the growing alternatives to embryonic stem cells. She said that stem cells from umbilical cords, which pose no ethical controversy, can perform the same tasks that some scientists claim may be performed by embryonic stem cells. In addition to this, umbilical cords can produce trillions of stem cells a month meaning there is no threat of a shortage.

Hurlbut, a professor at Stanford University, gave a presentation on altered nuclear transfer, a proposal he believes may provide an ethically acceptable alternative to human cloning for embryonic stem cells and one that has been hotly debated in the pro-life community.

His proposal calls for the DNA from a human egg to be removed and replaced with adult DNA, just as is done in traditional cloning. But unlike traditional cloning, in Hurlbut's method the gene responsible for creating the placenta is turned off. Hurlbut contends that this prevents an embryo from ever being created. But like traditional cloning, the egg still generates inner cell mass, or "blank" cells similar to embryonic stem cells. Eric Cohen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center was skeptical about the morality of the method and questioned whether or not the process actually results in a deformed embryo being created and then destroyed. But Dominican Father Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, who has a PhD in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was sympathetic to Hurlbut's proposal but suggested some modifications that he believes would make it clearer that an embryo is not created.

Among the more controversial topics was a debate over the acceptability of embryo adoption, the practice of a woman allowing an embryo created through in vitro fertilization to be implanted in her body. Thousands of human embryos are created and never implanted using IVF. Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a priest of the Fall River Diocese and Director of Education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, said that embryo adoption is wrong. Just as the conjugal union should be open to life, Father Pacholczyk said that new life should not come about outside of the conjugal union.

The dean of the theology department of Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Father Thomas D. Williams, disagreed. He said once an embryo is created it is a human life and deserves to live. Father Pacholczyk's logic, he said, only works if the embryos are partial humans, a concept alien to Catholic teaching.

The conference was also sponsored by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Discovery Institute, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Federalist Society, and Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University. Organizers of the conference said that the papers and speeches will be compiled, edited and published in book form.

Culture of Life Foundation
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Phone: (202) 289-2500
Fax: (202) 289-2502
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Website: http://www.culture-of-life.org