Well, finally we got our hands on the heretofore unpublished document, “Bioethics for the Second Term: Legislative Recommendations,” written by Chair of the President’s Council for Bioethics Leon Kass and distributed to Congress this week in a lobbying push led by Kass himself. It contains the grand plan for all sorts of bans and restrictions of science to be enacted by the U.S. Congress, and has been unabashedly promoted by Kass – who says that he is not acting as Presidential Council Chair during his lobbying efforts.
The agenda is sweeping, conservative, and odd enough that it has angered Republicans in Congress more than Democrats; the latter are beside themselves with joy at watching the right wing rip the Kass document to shreds for being too liberal. Democrats should not be too giddy – much of what is here could be pushed through the executive branch and left to the courts and states to reject.
Behold, the Plan:
Bioethics for the Second Term: Legislative Recommendations
Track One: Defense of Human Life
Prohibit the creation (by whatever means) of any human embryo solely for
research, in which the embryo will be harmed or destroyed.
Track Two: Defense of Human DignityProhibit the transfer, for any purpose, of any human embryo (produced ex
vivo, by whatever means) into the body of any member of a non-human
species.
Prohibit the production of a hybrid human-animal embryo by fertilization
of human egg by animal sperm or of animal egg by human sperm.
Prohibit the transfer of a human embryo (produced ex vivo) to a womans
uterus for any purpose other than to attempt to produce a live-born child.
Prohibit attempts to conceive a child by:
(1) Any means other than the union of egg and sperm.
(2) Using gametes obtained from a human fetus or derived from human
embryonic stem cells.
(3) Fusing blastomeres from two or more embryos
(a) Operationally, in each case the prohibited act comprises the creation
ex vivo of any such human embryo with the intent to transfer it to a
womans body to initiate a pregnancy.
(b) Nothing in this law shall be construed to prohibit or interfere with
efforts, on the part of someone not violating provision (a), to adopt or
rescue such an embryo by transferring it to a womans uterus in an attempt
to bring it to birth.
(c) Any child conceived by these prohibited means shall, at whatever stage
of its development, be regarded and treated under the federal law no
differently than a child conceived naturally, enjoying equally all rights
and protections accorded to a child conceived naturally at the same stage
of developmentProhibit the buying, selling, and patenting of human organisms at any
stage of development.In this and the subsequent provisions, it will be necessary to offer a
definition of human embryo.In this provision, it will be necessary to define fertilization in such
a way as to exclude from this statutory prohibition the current practice,
in assisted reproduction clinics, of testing the capacity of human sperm by
seeing if they can penetrate oocytes taken from hamsters. No union of
sperm and egg nuclei occurs; thus no embryo is formed.It will be important here to define who will be seen as violating this
prohibition: suggest that this include at least those (1) who plan or do
the act, (2) who advertise themselves as offering this service for this
purpose, and (3) who own a company whose employees engage in such a
practice or that profits from it.A Bioethics Agenda for the Presidents Second Term
This purpose of this memo is to outline a bold and plausible offensive
bioethics agenda for the second term.What we seek to achieve
New biotechnologies challenging human freedom, equality, and dignity are
arriving at an accelerating pace, especially in the domains of assisted
reproduction and genetic manipulation. And yet there are currently no
boundaries or protections in federal law to help us confront the challenges
they pose. Three aims, above all, guide the effort to establish
boundaries:
1. To defend the dignity of human procreation, of parents, children, and
families, from certain dehumanizing practices now becoming possible through
new biotechnologies.
2. To defend nascent human life from exploitative and destructive
practices, and to prevent the treatment of the unborn as a mere resource
for research.
3. To advance responsible scientific research within these clear ethical
bounds.Efforts to achieve these aims in the first term, and results
Cloning: Sought to combine the first two aims by prohibiting a practice
that both deforms human procreation and creates human embryos for research:
human cloning. Backed a total ban of all human cloning, which passed the
House but failed to reach a vote in the Senate for two consecutive
Congresses. Appears unlikely to succeed in the next Congress as well.
o Meanwhile, South Koreans successfully cloned human embryos; British HFEA
authorizes human cloning-for-research; Harvard scientists get permission to
do human cloning-for-research; a right to do such research is
constitutionalized in California and endorsed in several other states. We
did not get the preferred convention passed at the United Nations. We have
lost much ground.
Stem cell research: Allowed federal funding for ESC research on lines
existing as of August 9, 2001. Got no credit from scientists, physicians,
and patient groups for doing so. Got nothing in exchange for this
permission (e.g. limits on other noxious practices). No control over embryo
research in the private sector. Have successfully defended the policy to
this point, but are purely playing defense for a policy that gives no
permanent benefit: the next Democratic administration will overturn the
policy, and the field will be left with no moral limitations anywhere.
Other Biotechnical Areas: No activity whatsoever. Radical techniques of
human reproduction and genetic manipulation proceed unscrutinized and
unregulated.Summary: We have played defense to support a funding policy that touches
but a tiny fraction of the brave-new-world issues we must address. If it
is clear that the cloning ban does not have the votes, we must pursue
another strategy to address our concerns. It is time to broaden our
approach and to go on offense.Diagnosis
One key reason the effort to ban cloning has not succeeded is that it is
too narrowly focused and insufficiently ambitious; it limits our political
coalition and deforms our arguments. It sought to prevent only the cloning
of children, and not other troubling new methods of baby-making, and to
prohibit the exploitative creation and destruction for research only of
cloned embryos, rather than all human embryos. It was thought that the
combination of these two partial steps around the technique of cloning
might strengthen our position, but it has turned out only to confuse the
underlying issues, and to detract from the force of either concern seen in
full. The debate degenerated into an argument about terminology, rather
than placing cloning in the larger and more disconcerting contexts of
threats to the dignity of procreation and threats to nascent life. Our
response to the failure of the cloning ban, therefore, must not be to pull
back, but to move more aggressively on these two fronts, properly and
individually understood.The second term agenda
To make progress, we must return to our principles and think fresh about
how best to protect the dignity of procreation and family, how best to
defend nascent life, and how best to advance scientific research within
moral bounds. We propose a three-track approach that takes these three aims
as its starting point, and seeks to pursue them each aggressively.1. On the Dignity of Human Procreation: Seek legislative protections of
the dignity of human procreation, banning the following degrading and
dehumanizing practices (more than just cloning):
Transfer of a human embryo into the body of an animal, for research (or
other) purposes
Production of hybrid human-animal embryo (human egg with animal sperm, or
vice versa)
Transfer of a human embryo to a womans uterus for any purpose other than
to produce a child (no pregnancies for research or organ farming)
Attempts to conceive a child by means other than the union of egg and
sperm, derived only from adults (no cloning, no using eggs and sperm
derived from fetuses or embryos, etc.)
Buying, selling, and patenting of human organisms at any stage of
development2. On the Protection of Human Life: Seek a legislative ban on creation of
any human embryo solely for research and destruction (not just by cloning,
but also by IVF)3. On Advancing Stem Cell Research within Moral Bounds: Continue to defend the current stem cell funding policy, but offer encouragement and support through the NIH for efforts to find new ways to derive human pluripotent
stem cells without destroying or harming human embryos. These might include deriving stem cells from (a) dead embryos, (b) artificial
non-embryo-but-embryo-like artifacts, (c) non-destructive embryo biopsy,
(d) reprogrammed adult somatic cells.Summary: Taken together, these offer a strong and coherent bioethics
agenda for the second Bush term. They target squarely the three key moral
aims, with each track designed to be pursued independently and to be
difficult to oppose in its own terms. They allow us to respond to the
inability to pass the cloning ban not by yielding ground, but by seizing
the initiative and raising our ambitions while still defending the existing
funding policy.We have today an administration and a Congress as friendly to human life
and human dignity as we are likely to have for many years to come. It would
be tragic if we failed to take advantage of this rare opportunity to enact
significant bans on some of the most egregious biotechnical practices.