__ Special Report________________________
Utilitarianism without Mercy
The spokesman for the Pontifical Academy of Life comments on bioethical issues that have provoked controversy in Italy in recent months, including stem-cell research and steps toward human cloning.
Interview by Sabrina Arena Ferrisi
Bishop Elio Sgreccia, the vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, is frequently cited as the de facto spokesman for the Holy See on issues touching on bioethics and the sanctity of life; he is also frequently quoted in the Italian press as a voice for the pro-life viewpoint.
Bishop Sgreccia was born in Arcevia, Italy, in 1928, and ordained to the priesthood in 1952. He was named titular Bishop of Zama Minore, Italy, in 1993. From 1993 to 1995 he was secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, before assuming his current post with the Pontifical Academy for Life.
The bishop has been immersed in the study of bioethics and life issues for over a decade. He has taught bioethics at the medical school of Rome’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, and served as director of the school’s bioethical institute. He has also been a member of commissions studying bioethical issues within the Holy See and at the national and international level. His articles on bioethical issues, in seven different languages, have appeared in more than 250 publications.
Why are so many governments and scientific groups focusing on the use of stem cells from embryos rather than adult stem cells?
Bishop Elio Sgreccia: Proponents of embryo research claim that embryos have a greater potential to cure and a greater flexibility of usage. They say embryos are “miracle cells.” But many scientists believe this has yet to be proven. We have no certainty that these stem cells can cure the diseases that they say. Even the British plan [see sidebar for details], recently announced by the Blair government, was declared to be lacking on the scientific and ethical plane by German scientists. What’s more, other scientists have noted that embryo stem cells can produce tumors, which means there are risks. This whole plan requires a serious experimentation phase on animals before anything is attempted on humans.
But even if you could prove that embryos were useful for research purposes, it is essential to remember that you cannot kill one human to save another.
So what is the real reason for using embryos, which people are not saying out loud?
Frozen embryos exist in large quantities in the nations that practice artificial procreation (in-vitro fertilization). From a business point of view, the biotech companies that intend to patent this process and sell it, find it much faster to bypass animal experimentation and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells take longer to utilize because they need to be extracted from an adult and then multiplied in a laboratory. This would not produce the earnings you would see from using embryo stem cells which are readily available, especially if you use frozen embryos. The suspicion we have at the Pontifical Academy of Life—which is not a suspicion anymore—is that the business aspect is prevailing over ethical and scientific rigor.
Why is the Catholic Church calling for the use of adult stem cells?
Sgreccia: This is a very pertinent question. Adult stem cells can be taken from the cells of umbilical cords, miscarried fetuses, or from other parts of the adult body—all cases in which there are no ethical problems. As time goes on, we increasingly see that adult stem cells are capable of functioning, not only in the same type of organ from which they came, but also in other organs—for example stem cells of the blood in nerve cells. It is bewildering that people insist on proposals to use and destroy embryos in order to extract stem cells, when you can use stem cells from adults.
The Italian Ministry of Health is espousing the use of the “TNSA method” for producing stem cells. Can you explain this method and why the Pontifical Academy of Life is against it?
Sgreccia: Here at the Pontifical Academy of Life, we have said that the TNSA Method, by its very description, is the same procedure used to clone the sheep known as “Dolly.” In that procedure, they developed an embryo which grew into a sheep. We do not see the difference between cloning and the TNSA method. If we have to say No to cloning, then we have to say No to this procedure.
The commission of the Italian Ministry of Health says this procedure would not produce a human embryo but an “embryoid body,” or part of an embryo. We say: Prove it first on animals. These “embryoid bodies” are a manipulation of an embryo in the first phase of experimentation. If, in fact, you are manipulating an embryo to get to an “embryoid body,” it is doubly illicit because you are creating an embryo and then tearing it to pieces.
This must all be proven before research and financing begins. At this point, the TNSA project must be debated within the Italian government. There is already substantial opposition in Parliament. I hope it will be corrected.
Exactly where do laws stand around the world today on the issue of human cloning? Are all countries operating on the same plane?
Sgreccia: When the cloning phenomenon came out with the news of “Dolly,” people feared that this could happen to human beings. Before this, we had known that cloning could be done on small animals and micro-organisms, but not on a larger animal. When people saw that it could happen to large animals, governments around the world spoke out against it: the US, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe. There was a chorus of refusal even from international ethical bodies.
In a later phase, a distinction was made between implanting the embryo of a cloned human being within a woman’s uterus for procreation purposes—which has been, and is still now, rejected across the board around the world—and people who want “therapeutic cloning” which is a strange term. This refers to the cloning of an embryo in order to destroy it in research. The European Parliament refused it, but the British government recently approved legislation to create embryo stem cells. So the first move has been done by England. In the rest of the world, cloning is prohibited.
Those who support “therapeutic cloning” use the reasoning that an embryo in its first phases, up until 15 days, is not a human person yet. They say it is a human being. This difference between a being and a person is nominalistic. No human person ever became such without first having been a human being. The embryo of a human is the first phase of an individual human that develops all its potential when it is adult. From the first day, it has all these possibilities inside. What we are talking about here is adapting the significance of a linguistic and biological concept to utilitarian and experimental ends.
In the US, President Clinton maintained a prohibition on human cloning for procreative purposes. But he authorized financing for stem cell research. It is presumable that this kind of research can be done in private institutions, and maybe even institutions financed by the government.
You have made the point that proposals for the government funding of stem-cell research here in Italy are not made in accordance with the usual standards for such proposals. Could you explain?
Sgreccia: The rules to present a scientific project (and I know this, because I am a member of commissions that approve research) are that you have to base your idea on previous experiments published in at least two serious, scientific magazines. If you don’t do this, you never get approval for financing. Here we see that no proven experiments exist—neither on animals nor on humans.
You have mentioned the use of umbilical cords in stem cell research? How can this be done, practically?
Sgreccia: You need an organization. At the Gemelli Hospital here in Rome (where the Pope has received frequent treatment), they are conserving the cells taken from umbilical cords. This is especially the case for people who have a history of disease in the family, such as leukemia or other blood diseases. Families can conserve their own stem cells to be used at a later date if a disease manifests itself. But a codification of norms and regulations needs to be put in place. Blood cannot be kept frozen after long periods of time. A consortium is being created in Italy to build a cell bank. I know that these activities are also taking place in France and Switzerland.
Earlier, you mentioned the issue of frozen embryos, the “leftover” product of in-vitro fertilization. The use of these frozen embryos is currently being considered for research purposes. What is the viewpoint of the Pontifical Academy of Life regarding this suggestion? And how can we respond to the existence of countless frozen embryos in clinics all around the world?
Sgreccia: We would never have imagined these practices after the Nuremberg Code. That Code basically said that experiments on human beings would never take place again in history without their consent—especially experiments that could damage them. As you know, these things happened in German concentration camps. Since then all international codes of ethics, like the Declaration of Helsinki, have prohibited experiments on human beings without their consent. They also established rules for voluntary experimentation on human beings.
The practice of in-vitro fertilization must be stopped. It only encourages the production of frozen embryos, and freezing embryos is utilitarianism without mercy. When you start a wrong procedure like this, any solution is wrong and sad. Using a frozen embryo for research purposes is doubly criminal— first, because you are freezing an embryo; second, you are using them so as to destroy them.
At this point, what can be done about frozen embryos? Should they be left frozen, or can they be “adopted,” as some theologians are proposing? (By adoption, these frozen embryos would be implanted in the uterus of women willing to adopt the children, even though the embryos were not genetically theirs.)
Sgreccia: The idea of adoption, per se, has an end which is good. Theologians say it is licit, but there is an extremely high rate of failure. It seems that out of 100 attempts to implant, only three or four would work. We know this because of experiments on animals. About 90 percent don’t work because when you unfreeze an embryo, it dies. Or it won’t implant itself.
Even if it does work, there are no guarantees that the child won’t have serious handicaps. The risk of handicap increases the longer an embryo is frozen: one or two years or five years.
Can we really counsel women to do this? It would mean counseling heroism. Many attempts would fail. Also, you would have to do it at certain periods of the month when the uterus is ready. And if the baby is born handicapped, she must still take care of it, because it would be cruel to abort it.
The issue is one big question mark. The point is, we should never have gone down this road to begin with. It is full of problems.
How do you feel about the recent decision of US President Bush to stop federal funding of abortion in international organizations?
Sgreccia: The Catholic Church has always asked for this, and not only from the US. What these international organizations are doing is a form of biological colonization through abortions and sterilizations. They condition the growth of developing countries on the most important capital, which is human capital. President Clinton, and even President Ford, thought it was a necessary thing to do because of the problems of hunger in the world and depleting resources. Kissinger even wrote a secret report that this had to be done for the sake of national security. So the government financed these policies of denatalization, using false reasons.
There are now between 40-50 million legal abortions a year around the world. This is [equivalent to] the entire death toll of World War II.
Hunger can be solved by better distribution. As a population develops, people figure out on their own how to reduce birth rates. Often, they begin to marry later. This process happens naturally. The Catholic Church has always called for responsible procreation by regulating fertility through licit methods—not with abortion or sterilization.
The Bush decision is a first step. We salute it with hope for two reasons. First, it respects the life of humans, and second, it is an act of international justice which does not condition the development of other people.
What should lay Catholics be doing in the face of these challenges to human life?
Sgreccia: We have to re-propose certain ideas to society: first of all, that life is a gift—that at the origin of every life, there is an act of creation, and that creation is an act of God.
Secularization has meant that men are judged by what they produce, not for what comes before or what comes after. We need to reconstruct the foundation.
We also need to re-discover the concept of human dignity. What is it tied to? Who has it? Is it only people who speak in parliament? Is it tied to the quality of life? Do men and women have it equally? Is it only for people with health, or do the handicapped have it as well? We need to re-discover the dignity of the body. It’s not just tissues and muscles.
We need a long-term strategy to reconstruct the culture of life. It is a very difficult task. We need to create a mature Catholic laity, which I do not see now. We need to sensitize Catholic lay associations to take the problems of bioethics in hand—in an effort that is in accord with the hierarchy.