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US Bioethics Council Member Proposes the Creation of Embryo-Like "Biological Artifacts" for Stem Cells

Proposed research would loosen federal funding constraints.

WASHINGTON, December 8, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The question, "when is an embryo a human being?" continues to dog a bioethics community in search of a way to allow embryonic stem cell research without guilt.

Now, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, seeking to free up federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, has proposed a new compromise. Dr. William Hurlbut has proposed the creation of a new kind of genetically engineered "organismic entity" that would produce human embryonic stem cells, but which would not qualify, he says, as a human embryo.

Hurlbut, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics since 2002, and professor of biology at Stanford University, told the Council on Friday, "This altered nuclear transfer may be able to generate functional embryonic stem cells from a system that is not an embryo but possess the limited organic potential of a tissue or cell culture."

Scientific research into genetic manipulation of human cells, ova, sperm and human beings at the embryonic stage has resulted in the creation of things for which no human language has any words. Human/animal hybrids, for example were called "chimera," a Greek word that the Oxford English dictionary translates as, "wild, impossible scheme or unreal conception."

Hurlbut said, "What we propose is the creation of entities that never rise to the level of integrated organismal existence essential to be designated human life with potential." By a technique he calls, "Alternate Nuclear Transfer," (ANT) he proposes to create an "entity" that "would have no inherent principal of unity, no coherent drive in the direction of the mature human form and no claim on the moral status due to a developing human life." Hurlbut calls this entity a "biological artifact," since, he says, it is a "human creation for human ends."

Dr. Richard Dorflinger, spokesman for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was not convinced that the newest thing for which there is no name is not simply a severely disabled human being in the embryonic stage.

Pro-lifers have been dismissed as alarmists when they have tried to warn legislators that cloning by other names and in other guises was coming and would not be prohibited under new laws which define cloning very narrowly and claim to ban all cloning. Dr. Dorflinger echoed these warnings, saying of Dr. Hurlbut's proposal, "Such a procedure would not be prohibited by the cloning bans the Catholic bishops have supported at the state or federal level."

However, Dorflinger seemed to put his concern aside when he gave a cautious green light to proceeding with the research. "I certainly appreciate the conceptual model that Dr. Hurlbut has presented and I think exploration in animal models is well worth at least pursuing at this time," he said.

Read Dr. Hurlbut's presentation (beginning at the bottom of page 61.):
http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/dec04/dec03.doc

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