Wall Street Journal Editorial
Stem-Cell Lines
May 26, 2005; Page A12
The debate over stem-cell research is once again being portrayed as a kind of moral Armageddon: a choice between federal funding and none, between scientific progress and religious zealotry. We hate to spoil the political drama, but maybe the system has stumbled toward a compromise that is more sensible than the debate makes it appear.
A bipartisan bill that passed the House on Tuesday would lift restrictions imposed by President Bush in 2001 on federal financing for stem-cell research. Mr. Bush threatens to veto the bill – a first for his Presidency – saying it “would take us across a critical ethical line.” But despite GOP defections and likely passage in the Senate, no one doubts that Mr. Bush has the votes to sustain a veto.
Recall what the President’s August 2001 decision actually did. It allowed federal funding for research on existing stem-cell lines where, he said, “the life and death decision has already been made.” But it forbade funding for research into new lines, which entailed both the creation and destruction of human embryos.
Critically, Mr. Bush’s decision applied only to federal funding; it did not impinge on the rights of individual researchers, universities, hospitals, private labs, public corporations or states to conduct embryonic research. In other words, the President did not “ban” anything. He simply refused to allow taxpayer money to be spent on a practice millions of Americans consider morally offensive.
So what’s happened, research-wise, since 2001? Given the rhetoric of some of the President’s critics, you might think the answer is nothing. In fact, federal funding for all forms of stem-cell research (including adult and umbilical stem cells) has nearly doubled, to $566 million from $306 million. The federal government has also made 22 fully developed embryonic stem-cell lines available to researchers, although researchers complain of bureaucratic bottlenecks at the National Institutes of Health.
At the state level, Californians passed Proposition 71, which commits $3 billion over 10 years for stem-cell research. New Jersey is building a $380 million Stem Cell Institute. The Massachusetts Legislature has passed a bill authorizing stem-cell research by a veto-proof margin, and similar legislation is in the works in Connecticut and Wisconsin.
Then there’s the private sector. According to Navigant Consulting, the U.S. stem-cell therapeutics market will generate revenues of $3.6 billion by 2015. Some 70 companies are now doing stem-cell research, with Geron, ES Cell International and Advanced Cell Technologies being leaders in embryonic research. Clinical trials using embryonic stem-cell technologies for spinal cord injuries are due to begin sometime next year.
True, many privately funded researchers complain about what they call Mr. Bush’s “antiquated stem-cell policy.” But we have yet to meet the CEO or entrepreneur who doesn’t bridle at government restrictions, or who wouldn’t welcome more in government subsidies under the heading of “basic research.”
These companies are still raising private equity on the capital markets, and CEO David Greenwood tells us that Geron has been developing its own stem-cell lines, a process he says has only gotten cheaper as they get better at it. “When Bush made those comments in 2001 we applauded,” he says. “We thought at the time, ‘hey, this is a victory.’ There was a minimum sufficiency of material to get the ball rolling.”
All of which is to say that if embryonic stem-cell researchers can get this far within the regime Mr. Bush imposed in 2001, then surely they can go further without additional federal help. The same goes for the $79 million the President and his allies in Congress are proposing to spend on umbilical cord stem-cell research. Here, too, the government is spending tax dollars to subsidize a private sector that already has every incentive to invest.
Which brings us to the political compromise we mentioned above. The Bush policy doesn’t ban stem-cell research; it merely says that taxpayers shouldn’t have to finance the destruction of embryos that they consider to be human life. This is a contentious moral issue, and many would draw a line differently than Mr. Bush has.
For our part, we don’t see any great moral difference from doing time-limited research on unused embryos created for in-vitro fertilization, as opposed to letting those in-vitro embryos be destroyed. (We recommend James Q. Wilson’s statement as part of Mr. Bush’s bioethics commission for some important moral distinctions.) But we’re glad Mr. Bush is at least drawing a line somewhere. His critics often sound as if the promise of scientific progress raises no ethical questions and is itself a kind of moral trump card. Millions of Americans also want to draw a line, and that includes not being forced to pay for destroying human embryos.
This is similar to the compromise that Congress has struck on abortion ever since the Hyde Amendment first passed in the wake of Roe v. Wade: Abortion may be legal, but we don’t force taxpayers to subsidize it. That’s the compromise Mr. Bush essentially struck on stem cells in 2001, and it is a reasonable balance.
