Comment: Living in the Brave New World

Family North Carolina Magazine—Mar/Apr 2007

By Bill Brooks

“According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, is classified as dystopian fiction, or “the creation of a nightmare world.” In his depiction of London in the year 2540, Huxley paints a grim picture of a world where “humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy.”

Wikapedia continues: “The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things from which people currently derive happiness — family, cultural diversity, art, literature, science, religion and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use . . . .”

The novel delves heavily into areas of reproductive technology and biological engineering, two areas where traditional family values are clashing with both science and medical practice in ever increasing ways. In this issue of Family North Carolina, we discuss one of the most promising, but also one of the most troublesome areas, stem cell research.

Regardless of your worldview, almost all Americans seem to accept as good the idea that scientists and medical professionals grow cells to treat injured or diseased body parts. Most do not question this any more than they do a hip replacement, setting a broken bone, or undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. We all know individuals, maybe even ourselves, who have undergone these and other medical procedures that have added years to their lives.

Where the debate becomes heated, however, is when those new treatments involve the destruction of human life in order to gain the raw material to develop these treatments. I am specifically referring here to the debate over embryonic stem cells. One of the most important points in this debate, and one that is rarely reported in media accounts, is that adult stem cell research has already provided treatments for more than 70 medical conditions and this number continues to grow.

The second point, often missed, is that these little biological building blocks called stem cells are readily available from our own bodies. They exist in each one of us, from the very beginning, and are available to those scientists and medical professionals who know how to gather, grow, and use them to treat a growing list of ailments.

Another point to note is that even though all of the stem cell advances have come from stem cells taken from non-embryonic sources, there are powerful forces that want to secure government funding for embryonic stem cell research. You might be thinking, “if adult stem cell treatments work, and embryonic stem cell treatments are not effective, why would there be such a big push for government funding for embryonic stem cell research ­— the kind that kills the embryo? I think there are several reasons.

The first is ignorance. Many, if not most people, have simply not heard about adult stem cell research and the fact that dozens of these treatments are being used today. They are not just a far off promise.

Then, there are the companies that want to patent new kinds of cells. They know they cannot patent cells taken from one’s own body and used to treat that same body. Adding to this is the fact that it has been extremely difficult for most bioresearch companies to raise funds to conduct embryonic stem cell research, for the simple reason that it doesn’t work. Thus the need for government to fund another boondoggle. And don’t forget the fears of abortion supporters who argue that if an embryo is recognized as human life and protected, then somehow the abolition of abortion cannot be far behind.

These are all arguments in the debate over stem cell research, but are ones you will rarely see mentioned in the mainstream media. On top of this, throw in the simple fact that embryonic stem cell research is not illegal — anywhere in the United States. So what we’re really talking about when politicians have opposed embryonic stem cell research is simply the question of who is going to fund it. Are taxpayer dollars going to be used or not?

In 1995, the North Carolina General Assembly made the right decision, as it has every year since, not to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions through the state abortion fund, except in the case of rape, incest, or life of the mother.

Legislators should act similarly on stem cell research, and not provide any funding to kill embryos. Therefore, there should be no funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Bill Brooks is president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council.

Copyright © 2007. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.