Old Rant: Embryonic Stem Cells and Cloning

I am a physician.  I grew up in a Catholic household, but don’t practice an organized religion any longer.  Still, the previous religious training colors my thinking.  Suicide, abortion, and cremation make me squeamish.

Intermittently, the debate over embryonic stem cell usage has played in my mind, while it has also raged in the media, churches, and Congress.  I think I found a way to settle the dispute, for myself anyway.  Possibly this could be the basis of a compromise between the researchers and those opposed to research.  I propose that Congress and the President allow the use of IVF embryos in cloning research, provided the DNA of each embryo is preserved for possible future maturation.  This preservation might take the form of a group of frozen cells or, perhaps, the digital representation of a complete genome.  The space, energy and expense to preserve 100,000 embryos would be no more than that needed to store one cryogenically preserved body. 

If cows, sheep, hogs, and goats were not edible, or otherwise useful to man, how many would inhabit the Earth?  Like the Great Ape, they would either be nearing extinction or already gone.  The same is true for embryonic stem cells.  Today, the chances of an in-vitro fertilized embryo becoming a living, breathing human being is dismal: 1 in 10, or 1 in 100?   Defective and unused embryos and all their stem cells are destroyed routinely.  They have absolutely no hope of enjoying life.  Individual embryonic cells are not too important.  What is important is the DNA inside those cells and the information about how it works: the processes that produce a human being and the things that go wrong to produce disease and other abnormalities.

The embryos we study are going to become very important.  The DNA from these embryonic cells, once we are able to reproduce them at will, will become as abundant as domesticated animals – for the sole reason that they are important in research.  When these embryos are turned over to researchers, grown in cell cultures, cloned, and studied, their DNA will be forever preserved.  They will be reproduced ad infinitum, hopefully leading to medical breakthroughs.

Should the human race show its appreciation for the possible contribution to our collective health and well being to these individual collections of DNA?  Would we have an obligation to do so?  Absolutely!  Eventually we will understand the science behind reproduction, genetics, and disease well enough to allow these collections of DNA to be placed into cells and grow to maturity.  That might be a hundred or two hundred years in the future, whenever the planet can support their arrival.  We might even repair a defective gene or two in each embryo, something that might have led to a fatal or crippling disease.  In this way, we could repay the individuals who have lent their DNA to research that might benefit all of humanity.  And when they are grown, we could actually, physically say, “Thank you.  Sorry about the delay in your arrival.  Welcome to the planet.”