[Note: This article was written by William Saunders, Human Rights Counsel for FRC.]

During the first six years of his presidency, George W. Bush vetoed one bill, and one bill only.   On July 19, 2006, President Bush vetoed a bill passed by Congress to overturn restrictions on the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.  (The President announced in August 2001 that no federal funding would be available for embryonic stem cell research where the stem cells had been derived through the destruction of a human embryo after the date of the President’s announcement.) 

 Within the week, the President will issue another veto; it, too, will be of a bill to overturn his restrictions on the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.  His veto will be sustained, as was the first, by the Congress.  In other words, the policy will not change.

 However, it is obvious that this issue will continue bedeviling our politics.  It will rise again.  What, and how, should we think about it?
 
 To attempt to answer that, I would like to consider a “consensus statement” of “an international consortium” concerning “stem cells, ethics and law” that was released about a year ago.  As described in the Washington Post, this international consortium, the Hinxton Group, consisted of “60 scientists, doctors, philosophers, lawyers, scientific journal editors, federal regulators and others from 14 countries who met in Hinxton, England, to consider ‘ethically acceptable norms’ of stem cell research.”
 
The first seven numbered paragraphs consist of (in the statement’s words) “principles [that] should govern the ethical and legal regulation and oversight of stem cell and related research and its clinical applications.”  What are these?  The chief principles are as follows: “Stem cell research should seek to minimize harm, and any risk of harm should be commensurate with expected overall benefit;” “Law makers should be circumspect when regulating science,” “while scientists and clinicians have a responsibility to obey the law.”
 
The consensus statement then goes on to give eight numbered paragraphs about “forward-looking strategies to foster the scientific and ethical integrity of research in a global context.”  One is, “for purposes of oversight, regulations and applications to ethics review boards and funding agencies, etc, human material donors in the context of human ESC research ought to be treated as human research subjects.”
 
The consensus statement concludes with four numbered paragraphs concerning the additional “work to be done.”  It opines that, “insofar as donors of human materials are treated as human subjects, many of the ethical issues raised by human embryonic stem cell research can be adequately addressed through existing international codes of ethics and policy documents”.  
 
Would this consensus statement be a good guide in our domestic stem cell wars? 
 
There are some good principles in the document.  Certainly, everyone concerned with bioethics, so far as I am aware, would agree that lawmakers should not rush to regulate science, and that scientists should obey the law.
 
However, only those who adhere to a utilitarian ethic would agree that “risk of harm [in stem cell research] should be commensurate with expected overall benefit.”  For, if embryonic stem cell research is immoral (a word not used in the consensus statement), no amount of “benefit” can justify it.

And this is precisely where the Hinxton statement falls fatally short of the mark.  It sets out to determine how “humankind” can best “realiz[e] the benefits of stem cell research in an ethically acceptable manner,” but fails to make the fundamental factual distinction upon which ethics and law must be based.  There are two kinds of “stem cell” research – that which utilizes stem cells taken from embryos, and that which does not.  The second kind of research is called “adult” or “alternative” stem cell research, and it obtains stem cells from human beings who have been born, umbilical cord blood, and placentas.  It poses no ethical problems because it is not risky to the subject.
 
The other kind of stem cell research takes stem cells from embryos or their equivalents.  Using current technology, the only way to “extract” embryonic stem cells is to “disaggregate” – to pull apart – the embryo, which kills it.  Since it is a scientific fact that the human embryo is a human being (a full member of the species Homo sapiens – just consult an embryology textbook) the long-established standards of the Nuremberg Code apply.  Principle 5 states that no research is to be undertaken on a human subject if death will result.  No other person’s consent is sufficient to permit this.  If the “consensus statement” means this, then it is correct – existing “international standards” are sufficient to make it clear that destroying embryonic human beings is wrong and cannot be justified by any benefit derived or hoped for. 
 
Who are the “donors of human material” that the statement mentions, who are to be treated as human research subjects?  Again, if it means the embryo itself, then treating it as a “human research subject” means it must not be killed.  But if that were so, why does the statement, as mentioned, speak of “commensurate benefits” and “new international standards”? 
 
In fact, if one looks a bit closer at the statement, one sees that “donors of human materials must provide informed consent”.  However, as noted, no embryo can consent, and no one may consent for it to be killed.  So it looks like the statement is built upon the denial that the human embryo is a human being.  If so, the statement is fatally and fundamentally flawed. 
 
In the end, the consensus statement seems to plead with us to accept the unacceptable – to develop international ethical standards to do what no system of ethics can make acceptable – the immoral use and destruction of human beings.  Until a consensus is reached that every human being – no matter how young or small, no matter where located – is of equal dignity to, and deserves to treated with the same respect as, other human beings, we must resist unethical scientific research.  That is precisely what President Bush will do when he issues his veto in the next few days.