Texas Thinks Hard about Stem Cell Research

I would not have believed Texas could even consider state funding for embryonic stem cell research until I read this in the Dallas Morning News:

One of the most important questions facing legislators in Austin this session is how to treat research that involves embryonic stem cells, which many scientists believe can help cure diseases such as juvenile diabetes and Parkinson's, as well as spinal cord injuries and other debilitating conditions. Such research is in addition to ongoing research using adult stem cells, which are much more limited in supply.

President Bush has limited federal funds for research using embryonic stem cells. Some Texas legislators want to go further, making such research a felony. At the other end of the spectrum, a joint resolution invites voters to amend the state Constitution to create a stem cell research institute.

In the middle are bills that outlaw the use of stem cells to clone human beings but allow their use in research designed "to develop regenerative or reparative medical therapies or treatments." Researchers would have to comply with strictures to be established by a commission composed of doctors, scientists, bioethicists, legal experts and religious leaders. The panel's members would be appointed by the executive commissioner of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

That is a morally defensible policy that we believe is both ethical and smart. Under no circumstances do we condone replicating human individuals through cloning, but it does not follow that the state should ban carefully controlled research that might lead to cures for some of mankind's most destructive diseases. We urge the appropriate committees to pass legislation by GOP Rep. Beverly Woolley and Democratic Sen. Eliot Shapleigh permitting privately financed embryonic stem cell research.

The important thing which will put Texas ahead of the federal government and most other states is to confront the ethical issues and establish a sound regulatory framework. Some people equate the destruction of any embryo, no matter how early in its development, with the loss of human life. But our society is in the mainstream in having accepted that some embryos will be sacrificed in procedures such as in vitro fertilization, which make other lives possible.

"Most Western industrialized countries share a view that embryos in petri dishes are neither persons nor mere property," according to a report by the Hastings Center, one of the nation's oldest think tanks on bioethics issues. The fundamental question to be asked, the authors suggest, is: "Will a given technique or manner or purpose of embryo research express appropriate respect for these entities?"

We believe Texans can be proud of an approach that seeks to answer that question in a rigorous way in the name of improving the health and well-being of generations to come.