What was remarkable in the controversy over Dr Desmond Connell's recent speech were the points that were not discussed, namely the implications of new reproductive and cloning technologies.
In Ireland, public debate on ethical issues at the beginning of human life is still largely restricted to the questions of abortion and contraception. Headlines in Britain have instead focused on the approval of its government's scientific advisers for the "therapeutic" cloning of embryos for tissue production.
This new "molecular medicine" promises solutions to the scarcity of organs for transplants and cures for previously untreatable conditions. Dr Austin Smith, the Edinburgh team leader in the development of embryonic twins - one for implantation and another as a back-up copy in the case of a degenerative disease - hails the cloning of embryos for "therapeutic" tissue purposes as "the medicine of the next century" (London Times, December 9th, 1998).
Yet the designation of human embryos for cloning poses fundamental ethical questions. Are there any limits to the wish for new therapies? Could there be a price too high for restoring organs to health? Do humans owe each other such "therapeutic" self-sacrifice to prolong each other's mortal lives? What would the consequence be of sanctioning different classes of the human species, one just to be used for another?
The opposition to using embryos as raw material is not limited to antiabortion groups, or indeed, any one church tradition. The Church of Scotland's biotechnological advisory board has also criticised the decision.
Moreover, the practice of "non-reproductive" cloning violates the European Parliament's declaration of January 15th 1998, which issued a ban on cloning not just of embryos destined to be born, but of all embryos fertilised in vitro. It also prohibited the use of European public funds for embryo-destroying research.
Yet the much-debated Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (1996-98) and the European Parliament's restrictive decisions against the controversial passages on embryo experimentation and on research on patients incapable of consent have gone unreported in Ireland. It is a sign of how unprepared the Irish public may be in coming to a consensus about the choices which new scientific techniques pose. Does ethics have to move along with scientific progress that promises not only cures but substantial economic advantages in the "location" debate for industries of the future? Is the reported rejection of "therapeutic" cloning by three-quarters of the British population just a matter for "science education"?
Perhaps it is a sign that, despite protest, the alliance of scientific and economic interests is allowed to colonise further the lifeworld, defying the cultural standards achieved in historical struggles of a relationship of equals between parents and children, men and women, between those fitting the genetic "norm" and those with genetic "disorders".
Compared with the magnitude of ethical problems posed through the decision for "non-reproductive" cloning, the new practice of embryo freezing in Dublin seems far less dramatic. And yet the same possibilities of domination and manipulation arise when clinics have fridges full of human beings-in-waiting. It is a question of the moral status and rights of the embryo over the desire of parents for techniques which would optimise their chances of having a child. However, since the success rate is only slightly improved through freezing, the high hopes which infertile couples pin on this technique are unrealistic. Still, I can see two ethical arguments in favour of freezing: the reduction of the dangers to babies caused by multiple pregnancies and of risks to the mother posed by hyper-stimulation of the ovaries and egg harvesting.
A balance between the longing of couples for their own child and the dignity of the embryo can be achieved with pro-nuclear freezing. The fertilised egg is frozen before syngamy, i.e. in the 18-hour period before the genetic material from the egg and the sperm combines to form the zygote. Freezing at the pro-nuclear stage, however, comes at the price of not being able to single out the "healthy-looking" embryos, and slightly reduces the success rate. But it avoids the destruction of embryos after a fixed period as well as the fake solution of storing future human beings indefinitely, even beyond the lifetime of their parents.
The issue of freezing marks one of the dividing lines between European countries where alternative stances correspond to different definitions of the beginning of human personhood.
In Irish and German law it begins at fertilisation, and in the context of IVF in Germany more precisely at the point of syngamy. The Irish Medical Council's new guidelines remain silent on freezing but prohibit the destruction of embryos. The former guidelines insisted on the implantation of all three embryos created by in vitro fertilisation. The decision of the Rotunda Hospital in early 1998 to freeze four-cell embryos goes against both sets of guidelines since would-be parents are asked to sign consent forms allowing the destruction of their frozen embryos after five years. Legislators should act before that time is up.
There are issues for a National Ethics Committee and for legislation in reproductive medicine, beyond the often tragic problem of abortion, which need to be solved, not indefinitely delayed. Ireland should not be one of the unregulated European countries for the genetic and reproductive "cowboys" in the new gold rush of bio-prospecting.
Dr Maureen Junker-Kenny is head of department of the school of Hebrew, biblical and theological studies in Trinity College, Dublin
