Wired News: Stem-Cell Method May Cheat Death

"Stem-Cell Method May Cheat Death" reports on the potential derivation of stem cells from a single cell removed from a morula, which we mentioned a week or two ago on this list. Note, though, that they think it will solve the problem of killing embryos, because the embryo it was removed from would persist. The philosophical conundrum is that, if you believe any totipotent cell is human life, when you remove that blastomere from the morula all you have really done is twinned the morula. To someone believing in the sanctity of embryonic life, it might not be enough that the parent morula is not destroyed. The blastomere itself can be considered life worthy of protection. There is a point at which the cells cease to be totipotent as the morula transforms into a blastocyst. If someone could culture stem cells from a blastomere taken from a morula/blastocyst that has ceased to be totipotent -- then we will have really solved the stem cell problem to everyone's satisfaction, I believe. I think the ultimate point is that the stem cell problem may go away soon, leaving us only with enhancement, abortion, and PVS to distract us from health care reform.

Interesting Spin on PGD - Embryos Help "Beat Cancer"

From London Times Sunday.

Constitutional Cloning Take 2- Wesley Smith & Brian Alexander

A couple of days ago we found Brian Alexander's Times magazine piece on the First Amendment and rights to research, specifically rights to clone. Brian commented that we were a bit too harsh. Now Wesley Smith comes to the debate with a quickly penned response to Alexander in the Weekly Standard. If you are scratching your head about the comments by Leon Kass in the Alexander essay, to the effect that Kass would "rather not think about" the constitutionality question, don't despair. Smith is only too happy to clarify the evils of a 1st Amendment argument. This is truly new territory for the neocon bioethics crowd - kind of like their adventure in human nature theory - and it makes for great reading.

UPDATE: NYT on Cloning and First Amendment

Brian Alexander, one of the best of the "bioethics essayists" to emerge in the past five years, helps the Times' Magazine make a first foray by a newspaper into one of the more interesting questions concerning current and pending laws governing both cloning and embryo research: could they survive an appellate court review? Is it unconstitutional (or wrong) to restrict scientific experimentation on the grounds that such a restriction violates freedom of expression? Brian quotes Robertson, Kass and Sunstein on the analogy between experimentation and reporting. Brian tells us the Times' editors cut his interview with Lori Andrews on her great work on the specific issue of the constitutionality of cloning per se. I wondered about why the piece didn't mention the important FDA policy prohibiting cloning that aims at gestation; Brian says the editors cut that too.