Embryos ok'd as research fodder

On March 5, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research announced guidelines for funding of stem cell research, including rules permitting destructive experimentation on human embryos. The move raises concerns that the federally funded body is doing an end-run around Parliament, which was expected to introduce legislation later this year.

Under the guidelines, announced by CIHR president Alan Bernstein, research on embryos left-over from fertility treatments is permitted, with consent of the parents. The embryos cannot be more than 14 days old. The CIHR will establish a Stem Cell Oversight Committee to review funding decisions. Furthermore, the guidelines do not permit funding for human cloning, including cloning for research or so-called therapeutic cloning.

However, within days of the announcement, some in the scientific community had expressed doubts about whether there was an adequate number of existing embryos leading some pro-lifers, to worry about imminent pressure to allow therapeutic cloning.

Before the announcement, pro-life Liberal MP Paul Szabo (Mississauga South) asked a rhetorical question during an interview with The Interim: what happens when scientists come close to what they believe is a successful treatment but the number of surplus embryos have dwindled to near zero? "Once you open the box to such research, how do you say no?"

Dr. Will Johnston, president of Canadian Physicians for Life, agrees. He said it was fallacious to think that using "surplus" embryos, as long as new human embryos are not created for the purpose of experimentation, is some sort of compromise. "It is naive to assume that ‘surplus' embryos will not be created with experimentation purposes in mind. The embryo researchers and fertility doctors must, of necessity, work hand in hand." He added that there will be a perverse "incentive to create surplus embryos when fertility clinics will be the only source for these commodified human beings."

Johnston also criticized the 14-day rule, calling it "arbitrary." He explained, "There is no logical reason or historic precedent why this restraint should be expected to hold, even if it were built on firmer foundations. No distinct biological marker supports the creation of a 14-day limit for permitting the destruction of a unique human being."

Following the CIHR announcement, Szabo, who recently penned the book The Ethics and Science of Stem Cells, called for a ban on embryonic stem-cell research, arguing adult stem cells may be superior for medical treatments. He says research that requires embryos to be destroyed is morally wrong because it involves the deliberate ending of human life. "Whatever benefits there are to such research are outweighed by the cost to human life," he told The Interim.

Despite Szabo's outspokenness, most criticism has come from the opposition benches. Canadian Alliance health critic Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead) told The Interim that the guidelines permit what should not be permitted. "Killing life crosses an ethical line that should not be crossed," he said.

Campaign Life Coalition, Canada's national political pro-life organization, condemned the guidelines as "inhumane and presumptuous."

The Catholic Organization for Life and Family, a joint effort of Canada's Catholic bishops and the Knights of Columbus, registered its outrage. Jennifer Leddy, co-director of COLF, said, "The embryo should be treated as a human subject not as a research object." She added that while she "can empathize with the hope of those who are looking for a cure for degenerative diseases, this cure cannot be at the expense of another human life, however small, however fragile or invisible to the naked eye."

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which represents about half of the three million evangelical Protestant's in Canada, said it was "deeply disappointed with the decision … to proceed down the morally controversial route of providing public funding for embryonic stem cell research ... that deliberately causes the death of the embryo."

For their part, the CIHR claimed it was not making a moral decision but a scientific one. Ethicist Francoise Baylis said at the press conference that while some people consider the embryo "a person with full moral status," and others view it as "just a collection of cells," the guidelines were decided without addressing the issue of the moral status of the embryo.

But aside from what should be the clear morality of destroying one set of human beings for the benefit of another, the announcement has worried several quarters as to Continued from pg.1 the lack of democracy in the decision.

The EFC criticized the timing of the announcement. Considering the government has indicated it would act on the committee's report later this spring, an EFC spokesman wondered, "Why did the CIHR choose to move now before a full regulatory structure is in place?" The spokesman noted it, "has pre-empted the federal government and will begin to fund controversial research in a regulatory vacuum."

Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer of CLC, told The Interim, "The CIHR is a body of the federal government, funded by taxpayers' money and it knew the legislation was coming in two months, yet it went ahead anyway and set up its own rules for embryonic research."

She also complained that the announcement came one week before Parliament reconvened, which gave the appearance the funding body was purposely avoiding or trying to minimize public scrutiny of its decision.

Merrifield, who is also vice-chair of the parliamentary standing committee on health that released a report on experimental and reproductive technologies in December, said as a result of the CIHR announcement, Canadian law now recognizes the legitimacy of embryonic stem cell research. "Because we have a federal agency, using federal dollars, doling out cash and setting guidelines, in the policy vacuum created by this Liberal government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is creating Canadian law."

CIHR distributes 560 million taxpayer dollars annually. As Douglas noted, "That's a lot of money they are controlling without benefit of Parliamentary control." Douglas said to allow the CIHR guidelines to become law by default is undemocratic. "The CIHR was pushing the government to draft legislation and they couldn't wait for the government to submit legislation. So we have an unelected body setting the law."

Meanwhile, Bonnie Brown, chair of the standing health committee, has called Bernstein to testify before the committee, upset with what she considers a slight of the committee's work.

Having solicited opinion from experts last fall, the committee issued its report in December. Bernstein claims his body's guidelines are similar to the recommendations of the committee – a claim repeated by the federal Health Minister Anne McLellan. But Merrifield begs to differ. He noted that the CIHR has no control over how such research is done and that embryos can be the source of first resource to gather stem cells. The committee, on the other hand, allowed embryonic stem cell research only when all other ethical alternatives had been exhausted and if the scientist was granted a licence by the minister of health.

McLellan seems ready to ignore the recommendations of the committee as she praised the CIHR guidelines allowing taxpayer funding for destructive research on human embryos.

She said, "Much of that which you find in the guidelines will in some fashion be reflected in legislation ultimately passed by this government."

Merrifield said McLellan knows the committee's recommendations on ESCR and the guidelines are incongruent, leading him to believe the minister wanted less stringent regulations than the committee suggested. He urged the government to stop the CIHR and to allow a full public debate on the issue. "Canadians have not had the opportunity to raise their concerns about this."

Douglas reminds pro-lifers that whatever the process that led to the decision, the "most important issue is that human beings can be killed for experimentation. Its an abomination." She compared the scientists clamouring for funding to the Nazi doctors who said "they (the Jews) were gong to be killed anyway so why don't we use them. The killing of human beings for the purpose of scientific research was condemned at Nuremberg."