After nearly a decade of contentious debate, the U.S. Senate is preparing to vote on stem cell policy.  Majority leader Bill Frist has assembled a package of three bills, each of which is expected to win the sixty votes needed not only to pass but to forestall a filibuster. The bills are a mixed bag, combining good policy, missed opportunities, and arcane bioethics. 

The major bill, the “Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act,” removes restrictions on federal funding for research using stem cells from embryos that were created, but not used, for infertility treatments. Current policy, set by President Bush on August 9, 2001, limits federal funding to research on stem cells created prior to that date.
This bill is a positive step forward, but President Bush has vowed to veto it.  It will likely be re-introduced next year, ensuring that stem cell research is a hot-button issue in the 2008 elections.

A second bill is the “Fetus Farming Prohibition Act.” It prohibits research using tissues from fetuses expressly conceived and aborted for that purpose.  This bill is designed to give Republican senators who vote to support liberalization of federal stem cell funding an opportunity to vote for a bill that will resonate with their anti-abortion base, and thus provide some cover.

In spite of its lurid title and partisan political purpose, this bill is justifiable on the merits. Although there are no reports of scientists currently proposing such research, the bill sets a useful precedent, reminding us that there are ethical lines shared by the great majority of Americans, including those on both sides of the abortion debate, that should not be crossed.

The third bill, the “Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act,” was motivated by similar considerations about giving political cover to Republicans who want to support stem cell research without risking the support of their anti-abortion base. It directs the Department of Health and Human Resources to investigate techniques for creating human embryonic stem cells without destroying human embryos.
Some of the proposed techniques could turn out to be welcome developments. But one, which involves the use of cloning and genetic modification procedures to create non-viable embryos, is very troubling.

“Altered Nuclear Transfer” (ANT), calls for the cloning of genetically modified human embryos incapable of creating placental tissue. Because they do not possess the potential to become viable fetuses, some anti-abortion advocates consider them to be morally acceptable as research material. But this research would subsidize the development of techniques that could be used in efforts to produce genetically modified and cloned humans, practices which even most liberal, pro-choice scientists and political leaders oppose.  In addition, these procedures require quantities of women’s eggs, raising concerns about putting women’s health unnecessarily at risk, and creating a potentially exploitative market in eggs.

So how do we evaluate the package of stem cell bills, taken as a whole? There are two good bills and one bad one, and this is a step forward.  But much remains to be done if the real benefits of stem cell research are to be achieved and the real risks avoided.  
In contrast to most of Europe, Canada, Australia and other countries, the United States has no comprehensive federal system of stem cell research oversight and control.  Rather, committees established by private companies, university labs, and a few states are cobbling together a patchwork of regulations of varying effectiveness and little consistency. 

In general, these regulations do little to prevent financial conflicts of interest among researchers and fertility clinic operators who supply embryos and women’s eggs for research.  Nor do they adequately address the thicket of issues involving patenting and intellectual property.  And they rarely do much to ensure that stem cell research isn’t used for socially unacceptable purposes, such as human cloning and the creation of “designer babies.”

The fact that Republicans and Democrats, and those on both sides of the abortion debate, appear to have been able to reach as much agreement as they did in the package now before the Senate should be taken as a hopeful sign.  What is most needed next is a bipartisan initiative towards a comprehensive system of federal oversight and control addressing the new human genetic technologies.

We need clear policies identifying those technologies we not only allow but affirmatively support; those that pose both benefits and risks, and should be allowed but tightly regulated; and those, such as reproductive cloning and inheritable genetic modification, that pose such profound risks that they need to be prohibited. Leadership towards comprehensive policies, from our senators, members of Congress and the President, is long overdue.