|
Looking for a
Surrogate Mother or an egg donor?
This book
is a moving real-life account of one woman's struggle
with infertility and her journey through surrogacy to
have the family she desperately wanted.
Click here
for more details
Latest Surrogacy News
Pro-lifers
criticize report by president's bioethics council
Apr
2, 2004 By Tom Strode
BPN News
WASHINGTON (BP)--The President’s
Council on Bioethics produced in many ways a commendable
report April 1 on reproductive technologies but failed
grievously on an issue of critical importance, pro-life
bioethicists said.
The panel recommended greater self-regulation by the
largely unregulated assisted reproduction industry, and
it called for federally funded studies of the effect of
reproductive technologies on women and children.
Additionally, it urged federal bans on the creation of
hybrid human-animal embryos, transfers of human embryos
into the bodies of animals and the buying and selling of
human embryos.
The council, however, recommended a prohibition on human
embryo research only when 10 to 14 days have passed
after fertilization.
By so doing, the panel “compromised on one of the most
important debates of our day -- the moral status of the
human embryo,” said Ben Mitchell, a professor of
bioethics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in
suburban Chicago.
“By recommending a ban on human embryo research, except
on very young embryos, they have opened the door to
embryo-destructive research,” said Mitchell, also a
consultant for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious
Liberty Commission. “There is no way to close the door
only partially. It will either be open or slammed shut.
The council should have slammed the door, locked it and
thrown away the key. Instead, they left a small crack
that will either provide a line of sight through which
to aim research guns at human embryos or will provide
the leverage to thrust the research door open for
Frankensteinian experimentation on the most vulnerable
of our species.”
The report’s permission for research that results in
death for early embryos is “morally reprehensible,” said
Carrie Gordon Earll, a bioethicist and senior policy
analyst for Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.
“Some may view this document as a reasonable compromise
within an appointed body in which there is disagreement
regarding the moral status of human embryos; we do not.
Any public policy that expressly subjects members of the
human family -– at any stage of development -– to
nonconsensual human experimentation fails the highest
test for protecting human life in society.”
The panel also chose not to call for a comprehensive ban
on human cloning. It called for Congress to prohibit
efforts to produce a child by cloning but did not make a
specific recommendation on cloning for the purpose of
experimentation.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., sponsor of a total ban on
human cloning, said he agreed with a substantial portion
of the report but was “disappointed the council endorsed
recommendations that threaten human dignity at its
beginnings,” The Washington Post reported.
The panel’s recommendations on the embryo research and
cloning issues are certain to disappoint pro-life
advocates in general. Bush, who has largely championed
the pro-life cause, appointed the panel members, who
include at least two staunch pro-life advocates, law
professors Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University and
Robert George of Princeton University. Other panel
members also have expressed support for a comprehensive
ban on human cloning.
In a footnote, the report said, “Some members of the
council are opposed to any experimentation that harms or
destroys human embryos, but, recognizing that it is
legal and active, they see the value in limiting the
practice.”
Mitchell said, “We expected better than we got from the
[panel]. We must be assured that we will get better than
we expect from those lawmakers who read this report.
“If Americans -- including pro-life Christians -- do not
raise their voices and shout for Congress to shut the
door on all human embryo research and all human cloning,
the space left open by the recommendation will
eventually become a revolving door that opens the way to
any imaginable research on human embryos.”
In the report, the council, which was first appointed
two years ago, said the “fields of assisted
reproduction, human genetics and embryo research are
increasingly converging with one another.” It
acknowledged there is no enforceable monitoring or
regulation of reproductive technologies. The panel said
it was not ready to suggest sweeping reforms. It called
its report an interim one while more information is
gathered. The recommendations it offered should be
enacted immediately, the council said.
The report “has many very commendable recommendations,”
Mitchell said. “Regulation of in-vitro fertilization
clinics is long overdue. They have been conducting
ethically questionable -- in some cases even diabolical
-- research for years, without any regulatory
oversight.”
The report, titled “Reproduction and Responsibility: The
Regulation of New Biotechnologies,” may be accessed at
the council’s website, www.bioethics.gov
back to top |
