There is that...

I've read a couple of really interesting stories in the last couple of weeks furthering the stem cell issue I wrote about last month.  First, the really interesting news: last week, scientists announced that they had developed a method of collecting an embryonic stem cell from a growing embryo (8 cells large, the size grown for in vitro fertilization procedures) without killing the embryo (indeed, the embryo can be successfully implanted with the same rate of success observed in normal in vitro fertilization procedures).  If the results of this study can be replicated (and it seems likely given the success reported in this paper), I would be very hard-pressed to drum up any opposition to the use of embryonic stem cells in research.  Again, assuming this is true (and removing the reason all these embryos are sitting around in the first place), I have difficulty identifying a moral problem with taking a single cell from a "living" organism if you do not compromise that organism in any real way (we do it all the time to ourselves - think blood tests, throat swabs, etc.)  However, the Catholic church is still not impressed, suggesting that this method amounts to killing two embryos instead of just one.  Scientifically, I don't understand how this argument makes any sense whatsoever.  I can't help but think that we as Christians continually shoot ourselves in the foot in so many ways when commenting on moral issues or scientific issues like this.  Through sheer ignorance or a deep mistrust of science, we have often taken what was a very legitimate moral debate (such as the destruction of embryos for harvesting stem cells) and then blown our credibility by refusing to acknowledge when a good scientific solution to a moral barrier to scientific advancement has been achieved.  Next time we raise the flag on some very important and legitimate issue in this field, maybe people won't take us as seriously as perhaps they should. 

Want an example of such an issue? (cue perfect seguay)  Check out this story about athletes who are essentially farming stem cells (not embryonic as was originally stated - sorry for the editing error) from their kids' umbilical cords just in case they have an injury and the stem cells can be used to reconstruct the tissue they have damaged, enabling them to continue their athletic career.  Essentially, they are wanting to use their kids' cells as a personal "repair kit" to prolong their highly lucrative jobs.  Although it should be noted that we don't know enough about stem cell signaling to actually make this happen yet, this is pretty scary stuff.  The purpose of having kids shouldn't have anything to do with generating "spare parts" for yourself; however, that could very well happen in this case.  On the other hand, just to illustrate how not black-and-white any of this debate is, there is a thought-provoking quote at the end of the article from one of the advocates of the idea: 

"There's a kid who's giving 70 per cent of his liver to his father in the hospital (in Toronto).  What if he could say, `Want some stem cells from my umbilical cord blood, we can grow you a new liver here?' Which is preferable? Is it ethical to give his father his liver surgically but not to have some of his umbilical cord blood?"

A fascinating question - I don't know how to respond really.  Making decisions on rules for using this technology which prevent abuse but also do not defy common sense is not easy. 

As a sidenote, I was talking to one of the stem cell researchers in our lab who is (for some reason) trying to generate oostcytes (egg cells) from stem cells (to me, this seems to be reverse engineering at its most bizarre).  I can assure you that even some of the people doing work in this field have mixed feelings about it, even without the religious perspective. 

While the Isreal-Lebanon conflict is obviously generating the lion's share of the news headlines here (along with the collapse of one of the ceiling panels on one of the "Big Dig" tunnels, a $15 billion project to bury all the expressways in downtown Boston, which killed one woman), Bush's decision to veto legislation giving federal money to embryonic stem cell research has also generated a lot of buzz.  This is particularly true in my scientific circle, since the lab I just joined is one of the relatively few labs in the U.S. which conducts this kind of research (although I will not be a part of it, by choice).  Only Massachusetts, Michigan, and California provide state funding for embryonic stem cell research - anywhere else, it's not illegal but nobody will give you money to do it, which practically shuts the research down.

This is one issue I have very mixed feelings about.  There are very valid scientific reasons why embryonic stem cells offer vast potential to fix a lot of problems.  One of the big pushes in bioengineering now is the growth of replacement organs - that is, instead of doing temporary patches while waiting for a human donor organ, the goal is to actively grow the different tissues comprising the heart by giving a stem cell (the ultimate "parent cell" type of all the cells in our body) the correct stimuli to "decide" which tissues to make and how to put them together.  This is essentially what happens during the development of a baby and is not nearly as science fiction as it sounds.  Indeed, right now (and using fairly unsophisticated techniques), we can grow simple organs (like the ear) fairly successfully in mice.  While embryos aren't the only source of stem cells, they are by far the least differentiated and thus the easiest to manipulate.  That means that while a mesenchymal stem cell (the next best kind of stem cell, from bone marrow) might be signalled to produce some of the different tissues in the bone or many blood cells, it wouldn't be able to produce lung tissue.  Embryonic stem cells are further back in deciding what they want to be "when they grow up", so they are easier to influence (kind of like McDonalds advertising Happy Meals to 3-year-olds).  So, as a scientist, I understand why people want to do this work - it makes sense and it may well work in quite amazing new ways.  The argument that the embryos the scientists want are simply slated for destruction anyway (if the parents don't want/need the embryos) is also somewhat compelling.  Why destroy something that may be used to impart very significant improvements in human health?  

However, here's where I think this whole debate is totally missing the boat.  Somehow, without any significant public debate, we have allowed 400,000 embryos (which have already been developed for up to six days prior to being frozen so that the in vitro fertilization doctors can select the "best" of the fertilized eggs to implant to maximize the chance for a successful pregnancy) to be put into storage.  If these embryos are deemed to be "unneeded" for pregnancy (a likely result if the couple chooses not to have additional children), all of these embryos are effectively marked for disposal , at least in the long term.  So, in a sense, the stem cell debate isn't about whether or not to kill embryos; it's more about how and when to kill them.  Or, put in another way, this embryo debate has effectively already been settled while nobody was paying attention.  While I would still personally refuse to do embryonic stem cell research since I believe that embryos are "humans" (that is, they contain everything required to form a human being), stem cell research may in fact be the best of two bad solutions to the embryo stockpile.

I recently found an interesting new book called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community from a professor at Harvard (just up the road... sounds a little weird...) about how North American communities are becoming increasingly disengaged:

"In a groundbreaking book based on vast new data, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures-- and how we may reconnect. Putnam warns that our stock of social capital - the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities. Putnam draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. We're even bowling alone. More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues."

And there's more:

"The change is most obvious in the sphere of politics - voting, political knowledge, political trust, and grassroots political activism are all down. Americans sign 30% fewer petitions and are 40% less likely to join a consumer boycott, as compared to just a decade or two ago. But the declines are equally visible in non-political community life: membership and activity in all sorts of local clubs and civic and religious organizations have been falling at an accelerating pace. In the mid-1970s the average American attended some club meeting every month, but by 1998 that rate of attendance had been cut by nearly 60%.

Equally striking is the fraying of our informal ties with friends and neighbors and relatives. In 1975 the average American entertained friends at home 15 times per year; the equivalent figure is now barely half that. Virtually all leisure activities that involve doing something with someone else, from playing volleyball to playing chamber music, are declining.

Although we are more tolerant of one another than were previous generations, we trust one another less. Survey data provide one measure of the growth of dishonesty and distrust, but there are other indicators. For example, employment opportunities for police, lawyers, and security personnel were stagnant for most of this century - indeed, America had fewer lawyers per capita in 1970 than in 1900! But in the last quarter century these occupations have boomed, as we have increasingly turned to the courts and the cops to make others keep their word.

You might want to take a look at the list of survey questions they used to ascertain "community engagement" here.  While all the figures are for the United States, I would bet a significant amount of money that the trends in Canada are essentially the same.

I find the last point of the quote above particularly fascinating - "although we are more tolerant of one another, we trust one another less".  This quote in particular brought to mind (in an incredibly tangential way) a terrific article by Andrew Coyne that I read a couple of weeks ago regarding the possible connection between Canada's policy of multiculturalism and the recent terror-related arrests in Toronto (I couldn't agree more with his main point below):

"The problem is not that immigrants are not absorbing Canadian values. The problem is that there we have provided them with so few Canadian values to absorb. We are the country of the notwithstanding clause, the country that exalts the virtues of pragmatism and compromise before all. We do not take a stand, we split the difference."

Here's the connection between these two items as I see it:  how can we build a cohesive society if we don't have any unambiguous and commonly-held values to strive towards?  And, if we refuse to engage in our communities to get to know who our neighbours are by working/playing side-by-side with them, how can we possibly develop these shared values and goals which we need to function as a country?