University Continues Divisive Path
Last Wednesday, the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on LB 700, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act. Although I was not surprised that the University of Nebraska Medical Center testified in opposition to the bill, I was dumbfounded by the outrageously inaccurate, if not misleading, claims made during UNMC’s expert testimony.
Dr. James Turpen, who teaches human embryology to first year medical students, presented as a matter of scientific fact that somatic cell nuclear transfer (i.e. cloning) does not produce “a new human life” or “a new human embryo”. He actually said “it is scientifically inaccurate to assert that it is.”
I’ve heard many cloning proponents use euphemisms such as “product of nuclear transfer” to disguise the fact that cloning produces human embryos. But I’ve never heard someone flatly deny that cloning produces human embryos. Indeed, Dr. Turpen’s assertion would surely come as a surprise to an elite list of international experts and commissions, most of which support the cloning of human embryos for research.
For example, Dr. Ian Wilmut, the researcher who used somatic cell nuclear transfer to clone Dolly the sheep, said "One potential use for this technique would be to take cells -- skin cells, for example -- from a human patient who had a genetic disease... You take these and get them back to the beginning of their life by nuclear transfer into an oocyte to produce a new embryo. From that new embryo, you would be able to obtain relatively simple, undifferentiated cells…" [7 Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 138 (Spring 1988)].
James Thomson, PhD, the University of Wisconsin researcher who first discovered human embryonic stem cells said that “by any reasonable definition…[with somatic cell nuclear transfer] at least at some frequency, you’re creating an embryo. If you try to define it away, you’re being disingenuous.” [Alan Boyle, “Stem cell pioneer does a reality check.” MSNBC, (published online June 25, 2005), http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8303756 ]
President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission, in its 1997 report on cloning said, “The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.” (emphasis added)
Dr. Turpen tried to substantiate his assertion by suggesting that only fertilization (the combining of sperm and egg) produces a human embryo. “As scientists,” he said, “we define a human embryo as a new genetically distinct individual that has been formed by the union of an egg and a sperm at the time of fertilization.” Based on this definition, an identical twin which splits off from an embryo after fertilization and is not a genetically distinct individual would not be an embryo.
“[S]omatic cell nuclear transfer”, he said, “does not produce an embryo by the process of fertilization nor does it produce a new genetically distinct individual. The result is the production of a small population of 30 to 40 cells that can be transferred to a long-term culture in a petri dish.” This was one of Dr. Turpen’s most ridiculous and disingenuous statements; a textbook example of a red herring, intended to divert attention from the basic fact that cloning does produce embryos.
I wanted to stand up and say, “Of course cloning doesn’t produce embryos through fertilization that are genetically distinct. No one says it does!!” Cloning and fertilization are two completely distinct acts, but both result in a human embryo. Furthermore, technically speaking both result in “the production of a small population of 30 to 40 cells” since every embryo, not matter how it comes into being, will at some point comprise 30 to 40 cells.
In 16 years of pro-life work, I have witnessed a lot of verbal engineering being used to dehumanize early stage human life and to deceive the public into accepting the destruction of these human beings. But Dr. Turpen’s testimony takes the cake.
It completely mystifies me that our state-funded University, which has demonstrated its ability to be an international leader in ethical research, would want to squander this good reputation by seeking a research path that alienates and divides a majority of Nebraskans and is at best speculative. If the University continues down this path, its efforts will be opposed mightily and relentlessly.
