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For a number of years, throughout the developed world, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has been carried out for the purpose of treating infertility. This involves having an oocyte fertilized by a sperm, in a laboratory setting, and then implanting the newly created embryo in the womb of a woman.

It is first necessary to “prepare” for this procedure by using drugs to cause the woman to hyper ovulate and then to harvest the oocytes from her body. The oocytes are fertilized in vitro and some of the resulting embryos are introduced into the uterus of the woman. It has become usual to fertilize as many oocytes as possible and to freeze and store the “spare” embryos. There is considerable time and expense involved in the process and for economic reasons; the practitioners want to keep the “spares” for further use. Canadian singer Celine Dionne has recently publicized this fact extensively by announcing that her newborn baby has a twin waiting to be born. As a consequence of this practice, there are likely several hundred thousand embryos in frozen storage around the world.

If we can, for the moment, disregard discussion of the procedure of IVF (which of itself proves conclusively that the life of a human being begins at conception), and look to the fate of the extra, or “spare” embryos, maintained in a frozen state, we face an immediate quandary as to how these human beings, are to be treated.

Fate Of Frozen Embryos

There seem to be at least four possible options in regard to the fate of these embryos, all of which present ethical, moral dilemmas; dilemmas called in one writing, “…the blind alley and the dark tunnel.” (Mauro Cozzoli, The Identity and Status of the Human Embryo, “The Human Embryo: Ethical and Normative Aspects,” TheVatican, Feb. 1997, p.295)

To keep in frozen storage presents the possibility that at some point the embryos may deteriorate (nobody knows when – 2 years, 5 years?). The question is; why they would be kept in any case? Some couples may want to gestate another child without enduring the harvesting process again. Some parents may fear future illness of their born child and hope to grow another embryo for replacement cells and other couples may want to wait and see what options science can offer them in the future. Others just seem unable to “let go” of what is a part of them. In each of these responses the embryonic human being is regarded as the “property” of the parents, to be used in the fashion most beneficial to the parents, not to their child.

The second option, to remove the embryo and to destroy it, is a seemingly harsh and unrealistic solution. To destroy, or kill, what everyone knows is an embryonic human being does not present as a compassionate answer. A negative response was raised when this was done in England with frozen embryos. The argument against this option by some scientific minds is that the usefulness of the embryo has not been explored. This train of thought is what has led to the demand to utilize the embryos toward some common good. Theologically, the planned destruction — killing of human beings — is not acceptable under any circumstances.

To use the “spare” embryos for research purposes, in a secular society, with hundreds of thousands of available specimens, presents for some as a logical method of dealing with the matter. This is the path proposed by government, by science and medicine and by utilitarian society. It is explained as a way to provide research material and opportunities by using an embryo that is facing death anyway. This simply makes it a useful death, one that will benefit mankind, another way of reaching a “good” end. However, the end, no matter what the benefit to mankind may appear to be, is not justified by the means involved, the death of an embryonic human being.

The idea of “adopting” an embryo, was proposed by a California Christian Adoption Agency, and is a very positive Christian response to a terrible dilemma. Yet it is not practical in any but small numbers and does not really offer a solution that is necessarily free from moral dilemmas of its own. Who will adopt and how will the future parents be screened? Will there be two parents, one parent, male or female, or two parents of the same sex? Will an unrelated surrogate be employed to provide the womb for gestation? Will that surrogate accept payment? What begins as an adoption or a rescue, would end really as a surrogate pregnancy with legal entrapments abounding.

A final concern is that it is usual to place two or more embryos in the womb to ensure the survival of at least one child. It could happen and does in many assisted reproductions, that more than one child survives implantation and the recommended “treatment” for multiple pregnancies is often fetal reduction, the killing, in the womb, of the unwanted “spare” fetus(es) – the same human beings who were implanted but who by this time are in a more advanced stage of development.

Ethical Responses

So – what is the correct decision, or the least wrong alternative from an ethical perspective, concerning the final destination of frozen embryos? Randy Engel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, head of The Michael Fund and a close associate of the late Doctor Jerome Lejeune, is quoted in The Catholic World Report (April 1999), in explanation of the sentiments of Dr. Lejeune about frozen embryos. She said, “His idea was that there had to be an absolute prohibition on in vitro: stop it.” About the already frozen embryos, he felt that they should be released and allowed to have a, “home in a mother’s womb.”

Msgr. William Smith, a noted Catholic moral theologian, was consulted for the same article in Catholic World Report, and he disagreed that adoption (nee surrogacy) is a proper means to pursue. He wrote in Homilitic and Pastoral Review, in 1995, “…that a good end does not justify this particular means to it.”

There are a wide variety of opinions, yet no moral, or ethical conclusion or consensus is to be had. Most published opinions have come from discussions within the Roman Catholic Church. These opinions may differ somewhat from each other, or from those of secular ethicists, but they all appear to be based upon concerns for the dignity of the human person and for the rights of the individual, however conceived, to a “normal” gestation period and to a two-parent family. Obviously, these concerns are grounded in the recognition that a human being exists at the embryonic stage.

From the Proceedings of the Third Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, recorded in The Identity and Status of the Human Embryo, Mauro Cozzoli, Professor of Theology Moral at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, in a paper entitled, “The Human Embryo: Ethical and Normative Aspects,” p.292-300, takes another position. He maintains that freezing of embryos is an, “abusive interference with the life cycle.” It is an extraordinary and disproportionate means of maintaining life and therefore the embryos should be removed from their frozen state and allowed to die. He points to the procreative techniques of IVF and the impassable moral dilemmas which they cause.

The existence of these embryos and their easy availability as research candidates, because of their hapless creation, is directly related to the current debate about the derivation of embryonic stem cells.

Stem Cells — What Are They?

What are stem cells? Stem cells are any cells that can renew body tissue. They can be animal cells and/or human cells. Stem cells can reproduce themselves (undifferentiated self-renewal) and can also differentiate into specialized body cells.

Pluripotent stem cells are the earliest stem cells and are able to differentiate into all types of cells.

In the creation of a human being, a mature oocyte is fertilized by a mature sperm, each having 23 chromosomes, and a new human zygote results. This single cell has 46 chromosomes and immediately divides and grows. The growth of the zygote is divided by embryologists into stages; morula, blastocyst and embryo. By the blastocyst stage (5 &$151; 7 days) the new embryonic human being has an outer cell wall and an inner cell mass. Embryonic pluripotent stem cells (ES) are derived from the inner cell mass.

Embryonic germ cells (EG) are to be found in the primordial reproductive cells of the developing human being. These cells are obtained from the gonads of cadaveric fetal tissue (aborted human remains).

Stem cells are also found in all adult humans, in bone marrow, in brain and fat tissue, in cord blood and placental tissue and apparently in many other human tissues.

Why Are Stem Cells of Such Interest Now?

A discussion paper from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, released in March 2001, Human Stem Cell Research: Opportunities for Health and Ethical Perspectives, states that:

It is the ability of stem cells to multiply and develop into different cell types that has generated the recent excitement in the scientific community and in the media relating to their therapeutic potential. Once their differentiation pathways are understood and methods are developed for growing these cells in large numbers it may be possible to develop cell replacement therapies to treat injuries and a wide range of genetic and degenerative diseases. These conditions include spinal cord injury, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophies, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease.

A scientific milestone was reached in 1998 when human embryonic stem cell-like lines were established. These were derived from early human embryos created by in vitro fertilization for infertility treatments but no longer needed, or from human fetal material following elective abortion.

The use of both these cell types is very controversial because of the moral, ethical, and legal issues relating to their source.

Canada has some of the world’s pre-eminent stem cell researchers, and a rich history of research achievements in the field. Given appropriate guidelines, drawn up with consideration for Canada’s unique legal and cultural environment, Canadian scientists are poised to make important contributions that could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of many debilitating diseases. (Underlining ours)

An article, “The Big Chill,” in the Globe and Mail, July 8, 2000, quotes University of Toronto bioethicist Peter Singer, “…every so often a new application for fetal tissue captures the scientific imagination. The focal point of the debate now is stem cells, it used to be Parkinson’s disease.” Dr. Singer points out how “scientific imaginations” attempt to find a useful way to employ what they consider to be wasted material.

Professor Gab Kovacs, medical director of Monash IVF in Melbourne, Australia, recommends that, “Rather than ‘waste’ their embryos [couples] could donate them,” to others. smh.com.au, “IVF parents urged to share excess embryos,” June 12, 2001.

James Watson, the discoverer with Francis Crick, of DNA structure, said in a February 10. 2001, News Report, “All the World’s a Stage of DNA,” that, “…the potential to treat diseases inherent in stem cells far outweighs any ethical questions raised by the research.”

In this discussion, we need to demonstrate how the statement by Watson betrays a false ethical position.

How Are Stem Cells Obtained?

The U.S. National Bioethics Advisory Commission (Sept. 1999), lists sources of stem cells as follows:

1) Embryonic germ cells (EG) are found in the gonads of aborted children. Oocytes, from the ovaries of females are primary oocytes and have 46 chromosomes. At fertilization, the process of meiosis will reduce this number to 23 chromosomes. However, it is the primordial germ cells that are harvested from the aborted female fetus.

Male spermatozoa from the testes are primary cells as well, with 46 chromosomes. The number of chromosomes reduces to 23 by meiosis at puberty and thereafter. Male embryonic germ cells (EG) are also harvested for research purposes from aborted fetuses.

The source of these germ cells, from a human being, killed by elective abortion, creates grave moral barriers to their being harvested and used for any purpose whatsoever.

2) Human embryonic stem cells (ES) are derived from embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and maintained by freezing. They are considered “surplus” to treatment for infertility. The embryos must be allowed to develop to the blastocyst stage and the inner cell mass is removed and cultured repeatedly to produce the cell lines that can be used to produce specific kinds of tissues. This process entails the destruction of the embryo, an embryonic human of 5 – 7 days gestation, and the use of his life-giving inner cell mass for research. The death of one human to provide research material for any purpose denies the human dignity that must be accorded to every human being.

3) Human embryos created by scientists for the specific purpose of research, using donor gametes simplifies the research process and provides embryos directly, without the interval of frozen storage. This source for research, at present is widely prohibited and should be criminalized.

4) “Therapeutic” cloning, for the purpose of growing cells that could provide tissues or organs for research or for curative purposes is a potentially possible and scientifically exciting source of cells. The stem cells extracted from such an embryo could be used to culture tissues to be given to the donor of the nuclear material, therefore eliminating rejection difficulties.

The “therapeutic” value to the donor remains questionable, and the life of an embryo is sacrificed for a selfish motive. The creation of such an embryo is, of itself, an act that is repugnant and unethical.

5) The issue of adult stem cell use has literally exploded in scientific reporting and in the popular media. This prompted the British Medical Journal to remark on January 30, 1999, that the use of embryonic stem cells, “may soon be eclipsed by the more readily available and less controversial adult stem cells.”

The Lancet, 8/26/00, p.693, commented in, “Overexcitement on Embryo Stem Cells,” that, “If stem cells do turn out to be a significant source of therapeutic agents they could come not from human embryos but from alternatives such as reprogrammed adult cells.”

Recent finds of new sources of adult stem cells that are pluripotent include brain, fat, blood and bone marrow. All these cells have been found to have a previously unrecognized ability to differentiate.

On April 10, 2001, it was reported by Rick Weiss in The Washington Post, that human fat could be used to grow a range of cells in the human body. The surprise in this research, detailed in The Journal of Tissue Engineering, is that stem cells can be obtained in many areas of the human body and not only in bone marrow and brain cells. Eric Olsen, chairman of molecular biology at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas commented that almost, “every other week there’s another interesting finding of adult cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be reevaluated.”

In the UK, new research offers hope that stem cells transplanted from a patient’s own body will be able to aid in the recovery of those who have suffered strokes. The research was published in the Stroke Journal and presented to the British Neuroscience Association Conference. It appears that these cells are more effective than cells from embryos because they are selective and they travel to the part of the brain in need of repair. The cells from embryos lack this ability. Reporter Patrick Goodenough for Cybercast News Service, “Stem Cells More Effective than Those from Aborted Babies,” wrote April 10, about a number of studies that produced similar results, in Britain, New York, California and in Milan, Italy.

The American subsidiary of Edinburgh-based PPL Therapeutics has succeeded in converting skin tissue from cows into beating heart cells by ‘re-winding’ the genetic clock of the skin cells so as to create ‘unprogrammed’ master cells. “The reverted cells were then programmed to develop into functioning beating heart cells, in the laboratory.” This was reported February 26, 2001 by the BBC and carried on Lifesite Daily News. The ‘re-winding’ of cells has often been discussed but thought to be impossible. David Suzuki on CNEWS Science, June 7, 2001 said that, “Eventually, scientists may be able to rewind adult stem cells to give them the same potential that embryonic stem cells have to grow into other tissues.” He was not optimistic that this would soon happen, but others appear to be more hopeful in this regard.

Margaret Munro, writing for the National Post, May 3, 2001, “Corpses may supply neurons to the living,” discussed a recent discovery that tissues from corpses, retrieved up to 20 hours after death could be transplanted into patients with neurodegenerative disorders. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California reported these findings in the journal Nature. There is a possibility as well that stem cells from an adult could be harvested and grown into neurons and replanted in the same adult to treat diseases.

“Paraplegic regains some movement after experimental treatment,” was the headline in The Ottawa Citizen, June 15, 2001,where Janet Hunter reported that Melissa Holley has felt some success with repair of her spinal cord. Selected white blood cells from her own blood were injected into her spinal cord in Israel in an experimental treatment that shows amazing promise.

Bone marrow is called the source of the ‘ultimate stem cell’ by Will Dunham of Reuters, as published May 4, 2001 in The Ottawa Citizen. The findings of two American Doctors; Neil Theise of New York University School of Medicine and Diane Krause of Yale university School of Medicine, wrote in the journal Cell about their findings that stem cells derived from adult bone marrow could be as “flexible” as embryonic stem cells. Dr. Theise is quoted, “This would appear to be the ultimate stem cell — or the closest we’ve gotten to it.”

6) The first type of stem cells used in therapeutic fashion were the stem cells found in placental tissue (afterbirth), which have been used to treat leukemia. It was felt that only haematopoietic cells could be obtained from blood stem cells. As science refined the studies of stem cells however, it has been found that stem cells from other sources, previously thought to produce only like cells, can differentiate into other types of cells and repair a variety of tissues.

Blood from umbilical cords of newborns has been found to contain stem cells as well, and these cells are able to differentiate into other body cells. Researchers in Florida have found that these cells may be able repair stroke damage in adults. (Cybercast News Service, April 9, 2001, “Stem Cells More Effective than those from Aborted Babies”).

The use of cord blood was highlighted in Canada in April of 2001 when Jesse Farquharson was treated at Toronto Sick Children’s Hospital with his own cord blood. He received a stem cell transplant to restore his bone marrow after chemotherapy. Using his own blood eliminated rejection difficulties and meant that a search for a match for his cells was unnecessary.

A story in the National Post, April 7, 2001, “‘Enormous Potential’ in cells taken at birth,” details the advantages of umbilical cord blood for stem cell retrieval. “What makes cord stem cells so promising is the ease with which they are harvested, and the enormous potential they hold. …Stem cells are easy to obtain after delivery, taking only minutes to collect without any known risk to the mother or her baby.”

“Jesse’s mother decided on a whim to save her baby’s cord blood when he was born.” Cord blood banks are available in North America and many more are opening. Scientific American first reported the successful use of cord blood stem cells in 1989.

A report from Trenton New Jersey, April 12, 2001, found on Lifesite Daily News, “Placentas Look Promising as Source of Ethical Stem Cells,” quotes a private biotech company spokesperson who reiterates the claim that stem cells can be obtained from placentas of newborn babies and that this, “will make obsolete the need to use human fetuses or blastocysts (human embryos) as sources of stem cells.”

Embryology › From Fertilization › A Continuum

A new, unique, living, embryonic human being comes into existence at the moment of conception/fertilization. This new human being has 46 chromosomes in each cell and is thus identified as a member of the human family. The new, single cell human being is referred to as a zygote but, under its own direction, the zygote begins to change immediately and passes through a number of stages of growth and development.

Embryologist Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D., describes the earliest stages in the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 1999, “When Do Human Beings Begin? Scientific Myths and Scientific Facts.”

After fertilization the single-cell human embryo doesn’t become another kind of thing. It simply divides and grows bigger and bigger, developing through several stages as an embryo over an 8-week period. Several of these developmental stages of the growing embryo are given special names, e.g., a morula about 4 days), a blastocyst (5-7 days), a bilaminar (two layer) embryo (during the second week), and a trilaminar (2-layer) embryo (during the third week).

It is most important to stress that from fertilization this entity is an individual human being. Take, for example, an excerpt from a story in The Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 2000, “Stalling on Stem Cells” which is representative of the frequent inaccuracies in reporting that we see in the media.

(To critics of stem cell research) that hollow ball of embryonic cells is a potential human being even if it is smaller than a period at the end of a sentence and not yet anything like a fetus, which only develops after the egg is implanted in a woman’s uterus.

The Citizen science is wrong. The “hollow ball” is a human at the blastocyst stage, not a “potential human,” and the whole blastocyst, inner cell mass and outer trophoblast layer, comprise the new embryonic human being. The “fetus” does not, “only develop” after implantation. The fetus is a human being in a particular stage of development. He/she does not suddenly “develop” into a fetus. The first 8 weeks of life is the embryonic period, and from 8 weeks to birth comprise the fetal period. This kind of inaccurate writing does much to perpetuate scientific myth.

The paper of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), “Human Stem Cell Research,” of April 2001, states that, “Research should be permitted up to 14 days after formation of the zygote.” This is a “graduated approach” based on development. Why 14 days? The claim of 14 days relies upon the theory that developmental individuality is not attained until the “primitive streak” is formed at 14 days. It was previously believed that twinning could occur only up to this point and therefore an individual could not in every case exist before then. This has since been disproved because conjoined (or Siamese) twins have been shown to form after this point in development.

Common sense dictates that since even identical twins occur in only about 1.1% of births, that 98.9% of embryos are, without any doubt, unique individuals from conception. Even the British Warnock Report of 1984 apparently admitted that the 14-day limit was arbitrary. One startling example that this 14 day point of development is chosen with little scientific grounding is that there are cases where one twin is born with Down Syndrome, with 47 chromosomes, and the other with 46 chromosomes. Recent studies postulate that the two individuals came into being much earlier than 14 days after conception.

It has long been apparent that this cut off day was chosen because it would not engender much public opposition due to the size of the embryo at this stage and because other countries have selected this limit.

Strong objection must be made to the funding of research upon human beings at all stages of growth and development.

Ethics And Morality

The issue of consent is given an inordinate amount of consideration in current discussion on stem cell research. But at no time can a blastocyst or an embryo give consent to offer themselves for research and death. Recent statements regarding research in developed countries demand consent of the mothers to have their aborted fetuses used for research, and of couples to donate the human embryos conceived in vitro. The spin put on requests for donation is that a death that can benefit mankind is preferable to a “wasted” end. Ethically, this is wrong. A “useful” end cannot justify the immoral act of deliberate killing.

Will a request for fetal tissue push a woman toward abortion? Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist at the University of Toronto says, “[If donating their fetal tissue for research] can put an altruistic halo around abortion, then more women will be tempted to have one.” (Globe and Mail, “The Big Chill,” July 8, 2000) This concern, and many others, demonstrates the moral complexity of the issue of embryo and fetal tissue research when the humanity of the embryo is not acknowledged.

The entire debate on the use of stem cells can be reduced to one question, a question of philosophy, not a question of science. When does the human being begin and therefore attain a moral status in society?

The CIHR paper discusses the embryo as having neither a special moral status nor a full moral status and as lacking an absolute right to life. The paper concludes with a Tri-Council Policy Statement on fetal tissue research which recognizes the fetus as a potential person. The U.S. National Bioethics Advisory Commission calls human embryos, “a form of human life,” and speaks of those who believe, “the embryo has the moral status of a person. The Commission says a ban on research, “reflects a moral point of view,” concerning embryos, “…because of their moral status as persons.” This is the crux of the debate, not science, but philosophy. No one denies the scientific reality of the embryo as human life, but they deny the moral status of the embryo as a human person, worthy of human rights, and they question the stage at which a developing child should acquire that essential moral status, if ever.

We must demand that this moral status be conferred on all human beings for all of their life. There is no time in which a human being is not a human being. There should be no time in which a human being is not accorded the dignity and respect due to a human person.

Pope John Paul II addressed a gathering of scientists in Rome on August 29, 2000. Speaking of human cloning and stem cell research, he said, “Methods that fail to respect the dignity and value of the person must always be avoided.” He continued, “Every medical procedure performed on the human person is subject to limits: not just the limit of what is technically possible, but also limits determined by respect for human nature itself.”

From Margaret Somerville, Gale Professor of Law and Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University’s Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law in Montreal, we have comment, reported in the National Post, September 21, 2000.

Conclusion

A conference call of September 7th, 2000, by Campaign Life Coalition, to discuss issues of stem cell research, gives us some direction as to what pro-life groups and individuals might undertake to deal with increased scientific activity in this field.

It was agreed that practical action is needed; education of pro-life supporters, alerts to clergy, briefs to government, assembling of expert testimony, training of speakers and extracts of religious and faith statements.

Winifride Prestwich, long time commentator on ethical matters for Campaign Life Coalition, put it very bluntly, “The greater number of people in Canada and throughout the world haven’t a clue what you are talking about. …the people who are going to make all these regulations, they are going to talk to a vacuum of ignorance. Because I see it as a teacher, you have to start at the beginning. We have to go back to the beginning and tell them exactly what is going on”

Dr. John Shea, M.D., and for Campaign Life Coalition, the expert on the topic, agreed and said, “We have to get a program of ethical and moral teaching which would include the social teaching of the Church wedded to and harmonized to a proper understanding of science, particularly biological science, and get with it and train the (priests) clergy to start with, and train the laity too. We must produce a teaching guide on this subject!”

Dr. Leakos cautioned, “Pro-lifers should not condemn stem cell research, we should try to redirect it towards ethical stem cell harvesting: we have to emphasize that we can use adult stem cells.”

Ethical research can be done using newly discovered sources of stem cells. It will take patience and perseverance by the scientific community and it will require education and a return to ethical values that respect human life for the whole human community.

Frozen Embryos And Stem Cell Research

Discussion

Frozen Embryos