# 357 Friday, August 10, 2007 - HOW OLD AM I? Or, the Great SCNT Controversy On August 19, 2007, I will be 62 years old. I think. Until recently, there was no doubt in my mind, how old I was, when my life really began. Life began counting from the moment I entered the world. Waaaaa?hi Mom, hello world, start the clock. Philosophers and religious folks may disagree. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle felt differently, believing that life begins when the baby first stirs inside the mother, the ?quickening? which he reckoned as the 40th day inside the womb. In 1591, Pope Gregory XIV, leader of the Catholic Church, agreed with this theory on when life begins. That would make me 62 years, seven and a half months. In biological terms, I am told, the quickening really happens around the fourth month, which would make me 62 years and 5 months In 1896, Pope Pius IX changed the Church?s definition of the beginning of life, saying life began at the instant of conception?when sperm meets egg. That would make me 62 years and nine months old, because I was a nine-month baby. In the 21st century, however, President Bush moved the goal posts of life?s beginning still further back, saying that life begins before the mother gets involved at all. ?I?urge the Congress to ban all human cloning,? said Mr. Bush, ?We must not create life to destroy life. Human beings (are)?innocent children waiting to be born?not research material to be used in a cruel and reckless experiment.??January 23, 2003. http://www.priestsforlife.org The President was referring to the medical procedure known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), sometimes called therapeutic cloning. Since 2001, President George Bush has supported numerous legislative efforts to criminalize SCNT. The ban he refers to, (S.B. 658, Brownback, Landrieu) the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, proposed in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007, would criminalize medical research for the first time in American history?and it is still on the Republican ?Values Agenda?. If the President got his way, any doctor participating in SCNT-- or any patient receiving benefits from it-- would go to jail for ten years, and be fined one million dollars. As for scientists, their lab equipment would be confiscated as well, conceivably shutting down an entire college science department, or a biotech company. And the Senator who proposed that bill? Senator Sam Brownback (R-KAN) had this to say about embryonic stem cell research: ?If you?re biologically a person in the womb, you?re legally a person?I?m not willing to say, ?Well, we can research on you when you?re 10 days old, but not when you are ten years old?? ?speech at Georgetown University, March 19, 2006. http://catholicsforbrownback.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html Both gentlemen are quite serious, although wrong. What is SCNT? ?Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), sometimes known as 'therapeutic cloning,' involves transferring a nucleus from a donor cell, such as a skin cell, into an unfertilized egg. The injected egg is then induced to divide, and when it reaches a few hundred cells, the so-called blastocyst stage, it can be used to derive embryonic stem cells that are genetically identical to the original donor. No sperm is involved?Moreover, because the blastocyst is not implanted in a uterus, no pregnancy is established.? ?Harvard Stem Cell Institute, http://www.hsci.harvard.edu
In Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, there is never ?a person in the womb? at any point in the process. Neither are there any ?children waiting to be born?. All we must do to verify this is to study the procedure. - Take skin sample from patient.
- Add (under microscope) one cell of that to an egg like a woman loses every month.
- Place in dish of salt water.
- Gently shock with electricity.
- Wait 5-7 days.
- Remove stem cells.
Where is the baby? SCNT involves no sperm, no implantation, no womb, no pregnancy, no mother, and no child. Without implantation in the womb, it is physiologically impossible to make a child. SCNT research is supported by the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, (AMA) the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR), the Association of American Universities, literally hundreds of groups, representing many millions of people. To the best of my knowledge, every major scientific, medical, and educational organization which has taken a position about SCNT?is in favor of it. Which groups are against SCNT? Religious groups, and politicians. It is possible, of course to abuse any tool. A related process called reproductive cloning means implanting an SCNT-derived blastocyst into a woman?s womb, as was done to make Dolly the sheep. The scientific world is united against reproductive cloning. No serious scientist suggests we should start cloning people. We can make plenty of people, the old-fashioned way.
Reproductive cloning should be made illegal; on that, all can agree. In Senator John Danforth?s book, ?Faith and Politics?, he states: ??every reputable scientist I know agrees that the reproductive cloning of humans would be morally reprehensible, and they believe that cloning human beings should result in stiff criminal penalties. But if the goal is outlaw reproductive cloning (as was done in California, btw-DR), then legislatures should do just that, and they should not take the additional step of outlawing research that can cure disease. To criminalize bank robbery, legislatures outlaw bank robbery. They do not outlaw banks.??Faith and Politics, page 92, 2006 SCNT should be allowed, and encouraged. It may offer us not only the possibility of individualized medicine, where cells could be taken from the patient, modified and put back, healing whatever was wrong; but also disease specific stem cell lines, so that we could follow the progress of a disease in a Petri dish, from beginning to end, and find its weak spot, and defeat that disease. The President refers to himself as ?the decider?. I do not think he should try to be the ?definer? as well. Don Reed
www.stemcellbattles.com
