Stem Cell Deliberations

In her latest Political Points commentary, CBS News Senior Political Editor Dotty Lynch takes a look at the debate over stem cell research.

That's both good news and bad. The good news is that he believes the decision on stem cell research is a very tough call both politically and ethically, and that he is weighing the issue seriously. The bad news is so are a bunch of other decisions on issues like missile defense, health care and the environment; but these don't seem to warrant the same long, deliberative approach.

The issue on stem cells is actually whether to federally fund research on embryonic stem cells. There is no controversy over funding research on adult stem cells. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sponsored a poll in June asking whether people preferred using cells "from adults, from placentas left over from live births and in other ways that do no harm to the donor" as opposed to research on stem cells obtained "from destroying human embryos." People preferred the first option by 67 percent to 18 percent.

In another question, by 70 percent to 24 percent, people opposed "using federal tax dollars for 'experiments' using stem cells with live embryos which would be destroyed during their first week of life." This is how the bishops see the issue (note the word "experiments" rather than "research" in their question) and this is how squeamish most Americans and most American Catholics are about this type of project.

The "other side" has an arsenal of polling data framing the issue somewhat differently. This is the Harris Poll question: "Stem cells come from human embryos left over from in vitro fertilization which are not used and are frequently destroyed. Many medical researchers want to use them to develop treatments or prevent diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. On balance, do you think this research should or should not be allowed?"

Organizations such as Catholics for Free Choice – a group which fights the Catholic Church on a host of issues, especially abortion – has been flagging these results which say that 61 percent of all Americans and 61 percent of American Catholics support such "research" (not "experiments"). They use those findings to claim that Mr. Bush is too cozy with the Catholic hierarchy and that both are out of step with American Catholics.

The fact is that the American public, including Catholics, have a very sketchy knowledge of this issue and polling on it is more for the use of interested parties trying to frame their arguments than for getting an accurate read of the public pulse. A July Gallup poll found that 57 percent of Americans said they hanot heard enough about this issue to have an opinion. One Bush strategist said he hadn't seen any internal polling on this question and that he believed any issue which takes five or six lines to describe is not in the forefront of people's minds and that their opinions wouldn't be fully formed.

The issue got some high-profile play last week when the Pope himself weighed in and told President Bush and the world in no uncertain terms that destroying human embryos, for whatever good purpose, was equivalent to infanticide. Bush advisors were stunned (the issue was supposed to come up in the closed session not the public one) and tried to wiggle around the Pope's comments by saying he only opposed using embryos created specifically for this research, not ones left over from in vitro fertilization. Not so, said the Vatican: "The moral condemnation also regards procedures that exploit living human embryos and fetuses."

Thus, Bush goes to his Texas summer retreat to mull over what looks like a no-win political issue. If he says OK to federal funding he disses the Pope, angers religious conservatives of all stripes and wipes out some of the good will from Catholics that he worked so hard to regain after the Bob Jones debacle during the campaign. If he denies the funding he will be branded a tool of the religious right, a backward thinker and an uncompassionate conservative.

But this is beyond politics. It is a very complicated ethical issue. The way the elites and the scientific community have framed the argument, it is a no-brainer. How can any right-thinking person be against something that uses discarded material to try to cure Parkinson's, diabetes and a host of other ills? Even Orrin Hatch and Nancy Reagan support it. To them it is what partial-birth abortion was to the pro-lifers: a wedge issue that lumps together both the core supporters and the mushy middle.

But framed in terms of human life, the public and the Pope see it in a larger context, one about the role of science and genetic engineering and the limits that should be put on experiments/research using human embryos.

Despite the hype, the fact is that even if Bush comes down against federal funding, this research will continue in the private sector here or in other countries. If the promise of curing diseases is so great, and the need for these cells to do it is so clear cut, the scientific community will probably prevail. But before he reverses course and gives the blessing of the federal government to the use of these embryos, President Bush should think hard, not just about the politics, but about the moral and ethical consequences.

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