Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401260027
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The heat of this relationship has never, in modern times, been more stoked than in the debate raging over ethics and genetics.
Recent strides at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk and other laboratories splicing and dicing cells to make better babies have led preachers and researchers to clash over issues pondered since Plato.
When does life begin and how far should man go when meddling with it? Are people part of nature or the master of it?
Jones Institute researchers have fanned the debate by coming one step closer to playing God - or at least improving on his work. They have figured out a way around the gene that causes Tay-Sachs, a rare disease that kills children by age 5.
Few argue with the results or motives of such experimentation. Purging multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and other genetically transmitted killers would be a major societal coup.
What's troubling, ethicists say, isn't the ends of genetic research, but the means.
In the case of the Tay-Sachs research, for example, an unused fertilized egg that carried the disease was destroyed. Those who believe that life begins at conception see that as murder.
The other major moral quandary focuses on the next genetic frontier. The Tay-Sachs milestone foreshadows a day when the DNA blueprint could be reworked to build more aesthetically pleasing children.
Instead of relying on the luck of draw to determine a baby's size, complexion and propensities, a laboratory theoretically could fertilize a batch of eggs and impregnate the mother with the pick of the litter.
Researchers scoff at such notions as far-fetched and perverse. Some become angry over such leaps of logic. But few scientists deny that today's breakthrough was yesterday's science fiction.
``We aren't in a position to defend what we can only imagine,'' says Dr. Gary D. Hodgen, president of the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
Major strides are being made by scientists, like the Jones Institute's Hodgen, working to help infertile couples become parents and carriers of debilitating genes to conceive healthy babies:
Such laboratory triumphs are bringing science and religion closer together, but at the same time pushing them farther apart. The medical community, which once snubbed theologians as arcane, is increasingly turning to preachers, ethicists and even social philosophers to answers questions that can't be solved with microscopes and test tubes.
Chief among them is when human life begins.
To some the answer is simple. Life begins when the sperm and egg join and form the single-cell zygote, regardless of where the coupling occurs.
Those who support a woman's right to an abortion have a less restricted view of when a fetus is a person.
Scientists have tried to come up with a working definition that allows them to continue with fertility research without becoming ensnared in the abortion debate. According to the accepted ethical standards of the American Fertility Society and similar medical professional groups, a fertilized egg evolves into an embryo and therefore a ``human person'' at 14 days, more or less.
Before that, when the cells have not begun to differentiate, fertilized eggs are deemed ``pre-embryos'' and may be disposed of, frozen or experimented on with the consent of the donors.
The vast majority of fertility researchers, including the Jones Institute, adhere to these standards. Most stop pre-embryo experimentation after about a week.
That's not good enough for many ethicists and some scientists. The American Fertility Society and its 11,000 members are only kidding themselves with the pre-embryo notions, critics say.
James T. Burtchaell, moral theologian formerly with Notre Dame University, says that in his view disposing of fertilized eggs is tantamount to abortion.
Embryo experimentation should be delayed, Burtchaell argues, until scientists figure out a way to do it without ``wasting'' life. Both of these ethicists are clearly in the minority, at least in terms of their views of pre-embryos.
Those who advocate the notion admit the 14-day pre-embryo concept was concocted to give researchers some ethical elbow room. They include Jamie A. Grifo, a leading fertility researcher with Cornell University Medical College in New York and a member of the American Fertility Society ethics board.
``It's the ultimate question: When does life begin? Nobody knows, not theologians and not scientists,'' Grifo says. ``The fact that we have access to the human embryo complicates the issue.''
Fears that genetic scientists and fertility doctors are recklessly playing God behind laboratory doors is a myth perpetuated by the media and religious zealots and others who don't understand science, Grifo says.
Advancements in genetic engineering come slowly and cautiously, says Grifo, who has successfully screened out hemophilia and cystic fibrosis from pre-embryos. The ability to genetically engineer superhumans is still very far off and may never be within scientific reach or ethically acceptable, he says.
``No one is planning or doing that,'' Grifo says.
Others aren't so sure.
``This is not about therapy for infertile women,'' Burtchaell says. ``The real issue behind the issue is eugenics.''
Before a researcher's proposal is funded, it receives intensive peer review that can take a year or more. Ethical considerations often come into play.
Increasingly, philosophers, lawyers, theologians and other social scientists are being asked to serve on ethics boards as part of the review process.
The rapid pace of genetic research over the past few years has spurred many ethicists and religious groups to demand a more formal review processes. Some even want the federal government to intervene.
by CNB