Les Jones

News > RNC: Bill Frist

Frist is responding to Ron Reagan, Jr's speech at the Democratic National Convention, without directly referring to the prior speech. He avoided Reagan's eye-glazing biology lesson. Instead, he divided stem cell research into two types, based on the source of the stem cells: stem cells taken from adults, and stem cells taken from embroyos.

Frist says that while the former has led to cures, and both fields hold promise. (The implication seems to be that embryonic stem cell research has not let to cures. Is that true?) He also got in some clarifying points on the current stem cell research policy. For instance, private research is unaffected, which is true. But while Bush's position isn't as bad as some make it out, I'd like to see more Federal funding, and fewer restrictions. Currently, Federal funding is only available for a certain set of cell lines, and some of those are apparently not useful for research.

Here's a key quote that seems to encapsulate Bush's policy. "An embryo is biologically human. It deserves moral respect. This president will not use your taxpayer dollars to destroy human life or create human embryoes solely for the purpose of experimentation."

This is an area of tricky ethical questions, but tricky ethical questions aren't new to science or medicine. Human dissection was controversial two centuries ago. There were even unethical practices for obtaining cadavers (with Burke and Hare being the most famous case). But now no one questions the value of dissection for teaching and research, and it's almost certain that embryonic cell research will be looked upon the same way in years to come. Let's talk about when we'll fully engage stem cell research, not if, and how we should set ethical standards for research.