Embryos equated to 'raw material'

In a report released in December, bioethicist Dr. Francoise Baylis of Dalhousie University lamented the lack of "surplus" human embryos in Canada on whom scientists can perform destructive research.

Neither Baylis nor "mainstream" news sources reporting the story pointed out that such research clearly contravenes the Nuremberg code, a set of directives written after the Second World War to govern research on humans. Its first principle is: "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential." In the case of embryonic research, the unborn child is obviously not able to supply his or her assent. Moreover, the code dictates that no "experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur." Embryonic stem cell research always results in the death of the unborn child from whom the cells are harvested, and the therapies developed from that research have been shown to cause horrific side effects in adults on whom they are used.

Baylis reported that in the 13 fertility clinics that responded to her questionnaire, there were 15,615 embryonic humans frozen in storage. The respondents represent only a small portion of in-vitro fertilization clinics in Canada, and thus the number of embryos is a fraction of the national total. Such abandoned embryos have created problems in legislatures world-wide, as researchers struggle to gain access to them, against the best efforts of the pro-life movement, and in the face of the general public's distaste of the idea of research using human subjects.

In apparently trying to use Canadians' aversion to cloning as a manipulative tool, Baylis argues that the lack of embryos available for research may lead to pressure from researchers to clone embryos for studying. In fact, there is already pressure from researchers to clone embryos, as it is easier and more effective to perform experiments on embryos who are genetically identical.

Some researchers have other ideas about how to deal with the so-called shortage. In an interview with Lifesite News, Dr. Peter Hollands, scientific director of Cells for Life, an Ontario umbilical cord blood bank, commented on Baylis's statement. As a scientist himself, he suggested that researchers "focus our attention on umbilical cord blood and adult stem cells which are readily available, and in the case of umbilical cord blood, are being discarded on a daily basis." He went on to question why bioethicists and researchers want to "focus on a cell type which is virtually unavailable, when umbilical cord blood stem cells are readily available."

While there have been over 3,000 successful umbilical cord blood treatments, and many more effective adult stem cell therapies, there has to date been not one successful embryonic stem-cell treatment in a human being. Embryonic stem cells, in addition to moral problems, result in tumours when used in an adult body, and require the use of expensive anti-rejection drugs for the rest of the life of any patient "treated" with them. This has led the pro-life movement to question the motivation of pharmaceutical companies involved in the pro-embryonic stem cell agenda.

Responding to Baylis 's reference to frozen embryos as "raw material" for stem cell lines, Campaign Life Coalition's director of research Hilary White said, "So we have reached the point of calling people 'raw material.' I wonder how long it will take to start arbitrarily designating disabled children and adults and the elderly in nursing homes as 'raw material' for research."

Bill C-13, which would allow embryonic stem-cell research and the anti-life IVF practices that create "spare" embryos, stalled late last year in the Senate when the House prorogued. However, there is immense pressure from researchers and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to have such legislation put in place.