Embryos Created for Stem Cell Research

A scientific development ignited new controversy today in the medical, ethical, and political debate over embryonic stem cell research. It also put more heat on President Bush, who has yet to decide on federal funding for stem cell research.

CBS News medical correspondent Elizabeth Kaledin looks beyond the heat to shed light on the facts.

Human embryos are created in labs every day to help infertile couples, but for the first time ever, scientists at the Eastern Virginia Medical School have created embryos specifically for stem cell research.

The procedure, detailed in the journal Fertility and Sterility says

• 12 women donated 162 eggs.
  
• 50 embryos were created.
  
• 40 of them were then destroyed to harvest the stem cells inside.

Cells taken from embryos have the unique ability to grow into any type of cell in the body and therefore hold hope for treating diseases.

Most stem cell research is conducted on frozen embryos that would otherwise be discarded. Dr. John Gearhardt, who conducts research at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, is on the front lines.

"I don't see, at this point in time, the necessity of generating embryos purposefully to destroy them," says Gearhardt.

But most of all, says Gearhart, the timing is bad. President Bush is on the brink of deciding whether or not to ban federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. News that scientists created embryos specifically to destroy them will no doubt provide powerful ammunition for opponents who don't want the research to proceed under any circumstances.

"The whole brave new world in which human life becomes a commodity for manipulation is opened up once you take any class of human life--even at the very beginning--as fodder for the researcher," says Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

But others say the development is the most powerful argument yet in favor of federal funding. Dr. Eric Cassell sat on President Clinton's national bioethics advisory panel. He says the research will go forward in the private sector anyway, but federal dollars will buy control and accountability for the majority of experiments.

"The public wants this research to go forward, but I would think the public would want it disciplined and watched over, and would want to know what's going to come of it," says Cassell.

Perhaps if the development had come at any other time it would have gone unnoticed, but today it has poured fuel on the fire of a burning ethical debate--and complicated the decision facing the president.
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