By Hilary White
OTTAWA, January 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An article published yesterday by CanWest News Service said that some Canadian ethicists are concerned by the growing pressure to allow women to donate “fresh” embryos for stem cell research. “Fresh” embryos are those created in an IVF lab and rejected for implantation. Others warn, however, that the fresh-or-frozen debate is just a foot in the door for the outright creation of embryos as research subjects.
The National Post reports that the House of Commons health committee is in the midst of pressure to allow the donation of fresh as well as frozen embryos. At least one project for stem cell research with donated fresh embryos has already been approved last June by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Wesley J. Smith, the US author and commentator on bioethics issues, spotted the Canadian article and says the commonly declaimed rhetoric about frozen “left-over” embryos was a ruse from the beginning. Smith argues that the loud declamations in the media, that were also heard in the House of Commons, that the research would be restricted to “spare” IVF embryos, was only a wedge in the door.
“This ‘limited’ permissibility is,” Smith writes, “at most, just a way-station to gain public approval, not anywhere close to the final destination.”
Between 2002 and 2004, when the proposed legislation was being debated in the House of Commons and the Senate, many Canadians struggled to warn the public that the scientific pressure for embryos would not stop at those in frozen storage.
The act includes a clause that allows embryos to be created for “improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction procedures.” Some warned that the wording of the prohibitions and definitions could be interpreted to allow for embryos to be used in nearly any type of research.
The “left-over” rhetoric was certainly prevalent in the debates leading up to the passage of the Canadian legislation. In one memorable moment, then-Health Minister, Anne McLellan told reporters that the moral status of the embryos was irrelevant, since, as she said, “they are going to be thrown in the garbage” anyway.
This theme was reiterated at all levels, and was even picked up by some who normally take a pro-life stand on related issues. In the Senate Committee hearing, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, a pro-life leader in the Canadian Jewish Congress, told members of the Upper Chamber to preserve the “sanctity of life” by allowing embryos to be destroyed for research.
“We do not have any problem, religiously, with taking what normally would have been thrown into the garbage or put into disuse and using it to save lives… (I)t would almost be imperative to take that which has life, and instead of discarding it, to use it for whatever opportunity we have,” Bulka told Senators.
The Liberal party’s own MP, John Bryden said at the time, “There is a universal feeling that embryos should not be created for the purpose of being killed.”
But Wesley Smith notes that the push to create embryos for research is advanced and has a chance of succeeding in the U.S. as well. He points out that the ethical guidelines of the US National Academy of Sciences could also permit the creation of embryos for use and destruction in research.
“But that doesn’t fly yet politically. So, we will continue to hear much about the leftover embryos, as most of the media ignore the real story that is unfolding before their very eyes,” Smith concludes.
McLellan Tables Reproductive Technology Bill: Allows Destruction of Human Embryos
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/may/02050902.html
Canadians to Create “Fresh” Human Embryos for Research Purposes
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062706.html