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Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007

Date: Jan. 12, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Stem Cell Research


STEM CELL RESEARCH ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2007 -- (Extensions of Remarks - January 12, 2007)

* Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, the issue of embryonic stem cell research places humanity on the frontier of medical science and at the outer edge of moral theology.

* On the side of science there is much hope, even expectation that extraordinarily effective therapies will be developed to treat--and possibly cure--a wide range of maladies such as diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal cord injury and a host of others. Progress has been achieved in the laboratory in animal studies and in human application. Much has yet to be learned, however, about adverse outcomes, which is why scientists proceed cautiously without over promising and with respect for the moral considerations of their research.

* The latter gives me the greatest pause. An editorial in America Magazine said it well: ``The debate over embryonic stem cell research cannot be fully resolved because it is ignited by irreconcilable views of what reverence for life requires.'

* Let us recall Louise Brown, the first test tube baby. Her life began in vitro, as a fertilized egg. There are many potential Louise Browns, potential human beings conceived in the laboratory but leftover as cryogenic embryos. Are they to be discarded, or, can they ethically be used for stem cell research? That is the moral theology issue that we must resolve.

* The reality is that human life is established in creating an embryo, whether in vitro or in utero. Each of us has to decide the morality of this core element of the embryonic stem cell research issue. It is extraordinary research on the farthest frontier of science, experimenting with the very origins of human life. It is research which raises profound questions, anchored in moral theology, about the intrinsic nature of human life--when it begins, when it is infused with an immortal soul, and when it ends.

* The answers to those questions are not crystal clear; they are not subject merely to scientific formulation; the answers may simply lie in conscience between each of us and our God.

* For myself, I resolve the uncertainties of this moral dilemma in favor of the most vulnerable: unborn human life, which compels me to vote no on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 3).

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