Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 27-October 4, 1999

Volume 28, Number 6

Ethics of stem cell research to be explored

The complex legal and ethical issues related to stem cell research will be discussed by philosophers, biologists, attorneys, physicians and other experts in a day-long symposium at Yale on Friday, Oct. 1.

The symposium is sponsored by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and Yale's Interdisciplinary Bioethics Committee for the purpose of informing faculty, staff, students and the public about this issue.

The principal source of stem cells is from discarded human embryos created in fertility clinics. The cells derived from these tissues can be grown into any kind of tissue.

Stem cell research is controversial because of the hopes and fears that it engenders, according to Gene Outka, the Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics.

"It's because of all of the possibilities that it opens up, such as human cloning," says Outka, who will moderate "The Ethics of Stem Cell Research" symposium. "Some are already claiming that the control of human stem cells may lead to the greatest discovery since antibiotics. But progress in research cannot be entirely disconnected from debates about abortion and reproductive technology."

Another question raised by stem cell research is who will own the results, notes Outka. "And, if scientists use private funding, no law governs what they may do to incipient life," he says.

Margaret Farley, the Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at the Divinity School and co-chair of Yale's Bioethics Committee, says the political debate about stem cell research is directly related to the ban on federal funding for embryo research.

"The national bioethics advisory committee has held hearings for the past year on stem cell research," she notes. "Congress is expected to take action on it, perhaps in early October. As the benefits become clearer, the objections to stem cell research are being heard over talk about the strides forward that can be made in medical treatment of many diseases.

"The moral questions that have been raised are not about stem cell research as such, it's about where you get the stem cells from," she adds. "Two likely sources for human stem cells are embryos and aborted fetuses. So those who have moral difficulties with using either of those two entities for research have difficulty with stem cell research."

A faculty study group made up of professors representing the sciences, ethics, and medicine is in the process of being formed to discuss this issue, with the goal of publishing their findings in one year.

The symposium will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Whitney Humanities Center at 53 Wall St.

Among the speakers will be: Dr. Ronald D.G. McKay, chief of the molecular biology laboratory at the National Institutes of Health, who will give a history of key developments in the science of stem cells; Professor John Fletcher, who teaches biomedical ethics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and who will discuss the scientific and moral controversies related to human stem cell research; and Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center in Garrison, New York, who will speak about the President's Bioethics Commission and human stem cells.

For more information, call Carol Pollard at 432-6188.

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