Stem cell research: Not on Faith Alone, by Cuomo

New York Times
June 20, 2005

Not on Faith Alone

By MARIO M. CUOMO

THERE is a way to get beyond the religious morass created by President Bush's position on embryonic stem cells.

Most scientists agree that while adult stem cells offer hope of a cure for some of the cruelest diseases and injuries, embryonic stem cells hold even greater and surer promise. As a result, while most scientists welcomed Mr. Bush's August 2001 offer of government resources to advance adult stem cell research, they and millions of other Americans were sorely disappointed by his refusal to consider retrieving any stem cells from the many thousands of unused embryos awaiting destruction. To most scientists, his compromise restricting federal financing only to research that used the 20 or so embryonic stem cell lines that had already been developed was politically clever but insufficient, not least because most of those cell lines are of limited and uncertain potential.

Mr. Bush does not deny the greater potential of embryonic stem cells: he says his decision was compelled by his belief that retrieving stem cells from the embryo destroys it, thereby resulting in the killing of a human being that cannot be justified no matter how vast the potential benefits.

The president did not claim his conclusion was based on biomedical science. He said only that it was an expression of his religious faith. Asked in March 2004 about the stem cell issue, his science adviser, Dr. John H. Marburger III (who headed a fact-finding commission on the Shoreham nuclear plant in 1983 when I was governor), said: "I can't tell when a fertilized egg becomes sacred," and added, "That's not a science issue."

No doubt the president's belief that human life begins with fertilization is shared by millions of Americans, including many Christians and evangelists. But it remains a minority view and one that the president applies inconsistently. Although Mr. Bush believes that destroying an embryo is murder, he refuses to demand legislation to stop commercial interests that are busily destroying embryos in order to obtain stem cells. If their conduct amounts to murder as the president contends, it is hardly satisfactory for him to say he will do nothing to stop the evil act other than to refuse to pay for it.

However well the president has negotiated the political shoals, he has produced a moral and intellectual mishmash that has failed to dissuade Congress from going further than he has in advancing stem cell research.

To extricate himself from an untenable position, the president should start by following the successful pattern established in other areas of dealing with the clash of religious and political questions, including the law concerning abortion. The right of true believers to live by their own religious beliefs will be guaranteed: no one will be compelled to use stem cell research or its products, just as no one will ever be compelled to have an abortion. And the nation will respect the right of believers to advocate for changes in our civil law that correspond with their own view of morality.

But our pluralistic political system adopts rights that arise out of consensus, not the dictates of religious orthodoxy; and if such rights are adopted - approving abortions or financing stem cell research on leftover embryos - they will be the law of the land, even if religious dissenters, through their tax dollars, end up helping to pay for things that they find anathema. Every day Americans who abhor the death penalty, contraceptives, abortions and war are required to pay taxes used in part for purposes they consider offensive. That is part of the price we pay for this uniquely successful democracy.

So far neither Mr. Bush nor religious believers have convinced a majority of Americans that the use of embryonic stem cells inevitably entails the murder of a human being. Most Americans, vividly aware of the millions of tragic victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer and spinal cord injuries, believe that embryonic stem cell research may provide cures. They will demand that Congress act to realize that potential.

If the president vetoes a bill that advances that potential, he will have to provide more than sincere religiosity to prove that human life exists as early as fertilization, a proposition that even the Roman Catholic Church and other religions have historically disputed.

The best way to test that proposition would be to employ a panel of respected scientists, humanists and religious leaders to consider testimony from bioscience experts describing when consciousness first appears, when viability outside the womb usually occurs, and how other religions treat the subject. They would then provide their conclusions to lawmakers.

Such a panel, the Task Force on Life and the Law, has been operating effectively in New York since 1985, devising public policy to address issues like euthanasia, the definition of death, surrogacy births, the withholding and withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment, reproductive technology and other difficult questions generated by rapid advances in medical technology. The panel's decisions on the definition of death, do-not-resuscitate orders and organ and tissue transplants were all adopted by the Legislature.

If indeed such a panel confirms that Dr. Marburger is right and science cannot supply the proof that human life starts at conception, then the president's position is based only on his particular religious faith. If so, the president would be wrong to deny the rest of America that does not share his faith the vast potential benefits of embryonic stem cells.

Mario M. Cuomo was governor of New York from 1983 to 1995.