Madam, - The letter of May 10th from a group of Irish academics raised a number of issues in relation to the Irish Council for Bioethics' (ICB) opinion document on stem cell research. We take issue with the assertion that the council's stem cell report "has no sound ethical, medical or scientific basis". On the contrary, the ICB spent 18 months preparing this report, which sets out in some detail the (peer-reviewed) scientific basis of stem cell research as well as the ethical and legal issues arising from scientific advances in this area.
The letter claims "it is likely" that therapies for diseases will be developed using adult stem cell research and induced pluripotent stem cells, thereby obviating the need for embryonic stem cell research.
Science is based on the systematic testing of hypotheses and observation and does not rely on likelihoods for its results. While induced pluripotent stem cells hold significant promise, they will not provide a replacement for embryonic stem cells in the short term.
There was also a reference to the possibility of IVF without the need for supernumerary embryos. Again, while future progress may indeed alter IVF practices, egg-freezing is a new technology and is still considered experimental. Thus, until sufficient data show there are no increased genetic or congenital abnormalities in babies born using frozen eggs, it will not become mainstream IVF practice. In addition, a significant body of research has also demonstrated that the majority of couples are not willing to donate their supernumerary embryos for other people's parental projects. Both these issues are discussed in some depth in the ICB opinion document.
The assertion that the council gives "no valid reasons" for its opinion that embryos do not have the same moral status as those already born is incorrect. We would direct the signatories to pages 34-41 of the report, which discuss issues such as moral status, personhood, potentiality and human dignity, which form the basis of our conclusions.
The ICB agrees that exaggeration of the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cell research - or, indeed, adult stem cell research - is not in the interests of patients and their families and this places an ethical responsibility on all sides of the debate to provide balanced and accurate information. - Yours, etc,
Dr DOLORES DOOLEY, Chairperson, Irish Council for Bioethics, Harcourt Road, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Frank Falls (May 8th) accuses Rev Vincent Twomey of making some "curious assertions," yet his own letter is replete with the same.
There are many who lack "an awareness of self as a continuing subject of thought" or "a capacity for higher-order thought" whom most of us recognise as persons: new-born infants, a loved one suffering from serious brain injury, the severely mentally handicapped and, indeed, all of us when asleep, to name but four groups.
It is true that our understanding of human life can and should be informed by what science can tell us. Scientists themselves can also reflect on the implications of their findings for our understanding of human life. When they do so, however, they begin to philosophise and theologise. Problems inevitably arise when they lack the necessary expertise to do so.
The assertion that human life begins at conception is indeed unscientific, because science is not in a position to pronounce upon this issue. It can tell us, for example, that a human embryo is "a totipotent single-cell, group of contiguous cells, or a multicellular organism which has the inherent actual potential to continue typical human development, given a suitable environment". It can tell us that when sperm and egg fuse to form a zygote, the complete genetic code of that individual being is in place. It is philosophical reflection on such facts which quite reasonably concludes that human personhood comes into being at conception.
To assert that human personhood comes into being at a later stage - which Mr Falls does not do - is arbitrary and the results are tyrannical, at least for those under that arbitrary age limit who suffer destruction at the hands of their elders. To argue that human personhood comes about in a developmental way - as Mr Falls does - is ludicrous: I don't think I ever was only half a person, or any other fraction of a person for that matter. A being is either absolutely a human person or not a human person at all. There is no intermediate state.
Since philosophical reflection, in agreement with theological reflection, tells us that human personhood comes into being at the point of conception, it also tells us that the embryo has full moral status from the very beginning. To assert otherwise, as the Irish Council for Bioethics does, is nonsense - and could lead to a power trip at the expense of the most defenceless of our fellow human persons. - Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIG KEOGH, Clonsilla Road, Dublin 15.
Madam, - A number of academics, in their letter of May 10th, describe the statement that "the embryo does not have the same moral status as those already born" as an extraordinary assertion. I would rather describe it as plain common sense. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK SEMPLE, Monkstown, Co Dublin.