Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (Doubleday, 2008) opposes embryonic stem cell research – and now that scientists have opened up an alternative that uses pluripotent stem cells but leaves tiny humans alone, the book’s ethical argument is not politically dead on arrival. The Jan. 26 issue of WORLD, now online at www.worldmag.com, includes an interview with authors Robert George and Chris Tollefsen, professors at Princeton and the University of South Carolina; here are some additional questions and answers.

WORLD: Why do you begin Embryo with the story of Noah escaping the Katrina flood on a flat-bottomed boat?

RG/CT: Early in his life, Noah was a cryo-preserved embryo in a fertility clinic in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, he was rescued and subsequently implanted into his mother’s womb. He’s now a young boy, and doing fine. It’s a great story, and the point of it is this: it was Noah that was rescued in New Orleans. It wasn’t a blob of tissue that later became Noah, and we doubt he will ever think that he came into being later in the story. When Noah thinks about his life he’ll think “I was rescued that day in New Orleans.” And he will be right—not merely as a matter of theological teaching but as a fact of science.

The story is important as well for its obvious Biblical overtones. In the Old Testament, the story of Noah is, above all, a story of hope in God’s promises. God enters into a covenant with Noah, and it is a covenant of life: God will never again destroy, but will protect human life, and He asks Noah and his descendents to bring forth new life. From a Christian perspective, that covenant requires that we give very small human beings the same respect we give to mature persons. And the fact that the New Orleans rescuers thought Noah’s life important enough to save gives us hope that we might see that respect more widely shown in the future.

WORLD: Until the breakthrough with non-embryonic stem cells late last year, those who favor killing embryos to obtain stem cells seemed to be winning politically. If a scientific breakthrough enables prolifers to win this ethical battle, should we be thankful for, and awed by, God’s providence — or should we be worried that reason by itself was unable to prevail?

RG/CT: This is a difficult question. There is indeed something disturbing, for example, in the willingness of some scientists to embrace the new stem cell technology as offering an ethically superior alternative even though they were willing to proceed with the ethically inferior procedure when it seemed necessary. It would certainly be better – at least for these scientists – if they had been willing to do the right thing for the right reason.

The worry is not unique to this problem, of course. Bad moral choices are frequently self-destructive; virtues often have the welcome side-effect of making us healthier and better off in other non-moral ways. And perhaps this is best seen as an element of God’s providence. Just as the law sometimes leads us to do the right thing from fear or hope of benefit, and not only for the right reason, so has God given us divine guides, in the order of things, to lead us in the direction of virtue.

Unlike the law, however, which is satisfied when external compliance is achieved, God continues to call each of us to a conversion of heart so that we can love Him ever more deeply and our neighbor as ourselves. This option is still available to us, as it will always be, in the ethics of human life. Will we only protect human life if and when it is convenient to do so, or will we love life, and love one another as He has loved us? That is and will always be a choice for.

WORLD: As you dive into the philosophical bases of the new proposals, you criticize various kinds of “dualism.” What are the major variants, and what effect do they have on the debate about embryos?

RG/CT: We talk about two kinds of dualism, which we call “metaphysical” and “moral.” Metaphysical dualism holds that we – you and us, and all human persons — are something other than the biological organisms we see when we look in the mirror: we are consciousnesses, or spirits, or perhaps brains making use of that body. If you think that, then you might also think that we were never embryos ourselves; and if that is true, then the destruction of human embryos will not be the destruction of human persons – in other words, those embryos will not be deserving of full moral respect.

Moral dualism holds that human beings only become worthy of moral respect because of some achievement, and not because of what they are—members of the human family. So human beings need to become conscious, or self-conscious, or intelligent before they are owed moral respect. So even if we were once human embryos, we were not at that time human persons – beings owed full moral respect.

We make three contrary claims in our book, and give many arguments for them. First, we are human animals, individual members of the species Homo sapiens. Second, in the vast majority of cases, human beings begin to exist at fertilization, when sperm penetrates egg, and a new being, genetically and functionally distinct from either mother or father, begins the self-initiated and self-directed processes of growth and development characteristic of human beings (identical twins are an exception to this).

Third, human beings, unlike the other animals, are possessed of the literally awesome (one might even say God-like) capacities of reason and free will by their nature. It is because they have these capacities that they are due full moral respect. But since these capacities are natural, humans have them from the time that they exist and for as long as they exist, even if an individual is not capable of exercising those capacities (because of disease, impairment, or stage of development). From the earliest embryonic stage, therefore, all human beings are deserving of full moral respect: they are human persons.

WORLD: You also point out the problems of “consequentialism.” What is it, and why does it lead to justifications for cruel and unusual punishment in relation to embryos?

RG/CT: Consequentialism—the best known version of which is known as utilitarianism—is one of the most influential moral theories of the secular world. It holds that all moral choices are to be judged on the basis of whether they are likely to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Consequentialists willingly embrace the maxim of Caiaphas: It is better for one person to suffer than an entire people. So for utilitarians and other consequentialists, there are no absolute rights, no absolute moral norms.

What this means in practice is that even if human embryos are the same sort of being as you and I, and even if they are entitled to full moral respect, still they may be sacrificed for the “greater good.” We see a purely consequentialist argument made in the case of “spare” human embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. If they are going to die anyway, shouldn’t we use them to achieve some good? But many people are going to die anyway (all of us, in fact!). Inevitable death does not do away with the absolute right of innocent human beings not to be destroyed and used for the purposes of others. So we argue against and reject consequentialism in our book as a deeply misguided approach to questions of embryo ethics.

WORLD: What’s needed to bring before our eyes the humanity of the embryo?

RG/CT: Awareness and knowledge (often made possible by television and other media) have helped to diminish the disadvantages of distance and numbers concerning, for example, the crisis in Darfur. Awareness and knowledge can diminish these disadvantages for embryos. Basic embryological knowledge can help embryos seem much less different and distant from ourselves. And embryo adoption is a practice that brings willing couples into the personal relationship with “spare” embryos that makes their plight an emotional reality.

In November, scientists discovered how to turn adult skin cells into stem cells. Now scientists from Advanced Cell Technology have made another scientific and ethical advance. They have reportedly figured out how to extract embryonic stem cells without harming embryos.

Researchers allowed fertilized mice eggs to develop into eight-celled blastocysts. Then researchers removed one cell for embryonic stem cell purposes, turning it into blood cells, neurons, heart cells, cartilage, and other cell types. They reported that the seven-celled eggs continued to develop normally.

An ACT press release said, “These new results have the potential to end the ethical debate surrounding the use of embryos to derive stem cells.” Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at ACT, urged the White House to approve the research: “This is a working technology that exists here and now. It could be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available to federal researchers immediately.”

Michael Sleasman, managing director and research scholar at Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, told WoW the discovery was another encouraging development: “I think it demonstrates that scientists are trying to find ways that are not necessarily destructive to the embryo, to find research that has promise for medical advances.”

Still, Sleasman and others aren’t wholly sold on the idea. About 80 percent of Lanza’s embryos continued to develop, around the same percentage that survives when scientists remove one cell in an assisted reproduction technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Some ethicists, including Stanford bioethicist William Hurlbut, say that number isn’t high enough. Sleasman has reservations about the research’s effect on the remaining embryos: “I would be concerned that the few days they allow the embryo to develop are not enough for us to fully know the full implications. … You’re unnecessarily subjecting the embryo to the potential for harm.”

The National Institutes of Health will review the technique and then report to President Bush for final approval.

Since scientists discovered that they could turn adult skin cells into stem cells, researchers have begun asking a question that seemed irrelevant before: Do people support non-embryonic stem cell research?

Virginia Commonwealth University says the answer is yes. VCU’s Life Sciences Survey 2007 found that 63% of the 1,000 participants said we need both embryonic and non-embryonic stem cell research, while 22% said that embryonic stem cell research is no longer necessary.

The number of those who favor embryonic stem cell research (54%) has remained stable since 2004, Survey Director Cary Funk told WoW, and the discovery hasn’t diminished overall support for embryonic stem cell research. Those who strongly favor embryonic stem cell research haven’t changed their minds about its necessity: Only 6% said the discovery meant embryonic stem cell research was no longer necessary. They no longer focus exclusively on embryonic stem cell research, however. Some 86% said we need to pursue non-embryonic stem cell research, too.

Among those strongly opposed to embryonic stem cell research, 63% said we no longer need embryonic stem cell research and 20% said we need both kinds of research. Funk said those with a weaker opposition to embryonic stem cell research leaned towards supporting both types of research: A majority (55%) said we need both kinds of research, and 25% said that we no longer need embryonic stem cell research at all.

When it came to setting priorities – advancing science versus protecting embryonic life – public opinion was evenly divided. Forty-six percent said it was more important to make sure that scientists don’t destroy human embryos, and 42% put a higher priority on conducting research that might result in new medical advances.

Some 38% of those surveyed were already aware of the discovery – a surprisingly high percentage, Funk said. As Americans become more aware of new advancements, public opinion may continue to change.

Two weeks after scientists announced that they could turn skin cells into stem cells without using human embryos, the debate over the implications heats up. Scientists and pundits take sides on the breakthrough’s scientific and ethical implications.

In the Washington Post, Alan I. Leshner and James A. Thomson (one of two scientists who developed the technique), cautioned against a quick rejection of embryonic stem cell research. They also said that conservatives can’t interpret the breakthrough as a vindication of George Bush’s restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, noting that the breakthrough “depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.”

Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said Bush’s policy is just one reason scientists explored less controversial research. Ethics – not just politics or funding – played a role, and Smith said the Bush policy helped by focusing on “the moral importance of the embryo.” Thomson, one of the first scientists to isolate embryonic stem cells, has admitted his own ethical reservations about his research: “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough. … I thought long and hard about whether I would do it.”

Smith said he believes the new technique will affect human cloning more than embryonic stem cell research, since it has given scientists something they believed possible only through cloning: “Tailor-made, patient-specific, pluripotent stem cells.” He predicts that President Bush’s stem cell research policy will stand through the rest of his term, and embryonic stem cell research will play a lesser part in the 2008 election. A California stem cell agency that spent millions on embryonic stem cell research is now funding research that does not harm human embryos.

But what do the world’s first cloners and stem cell researchers have to say? Ian Wilmut, the world’s first cloner, has rejected cloning research for Thomson’s new technique. And Thomson said the stem cell wars he helped begin will eventually end: “A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote.”

Scientists have discovered how to turn adult human skin cells into stem cells and then into heart, brain and bone tissue, and they have done it without using human eggs or embryos.

Researchers at Kyoto University and the University of Wisconsin announced the advance today, and it has breathtaking implications for the future of medical research and the bioethics debate. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technologies, called the discovery “the holy grail. It’s like turning lead into gold.”

Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University first tested the technique – called somatic cell dedifferentiation – when he turned mice skin cells into stem cells last year. The same technique works with human cells. Scientists insert four genes into the skin cells, turning the cells into blank slates that they can then transform into other cell types like heart, brain and bone. Dr. James Thomson said in every test, the reprogrammed cells behaved just like human embryonic stem cells.

The technique has its drawbacks. As with embryonic stem cells, there is a risk that the cells will become cancerous, but scientists are optimistic that they can overcome this. The technique also has some marked advantages: Using a flake of skin is cheaper than using a fertilized human egg, the new cells are tailor-made for the donor, and the technique is not hampered by ethical controversy like human cloning or embryonic stem cell research. Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow of bioethics at Discovery Institute, told WoW the breakthrough undercuts the drive towards human cloning because it “gives scientists everything they said they wanted, without the moral baggage.”

The news comes days after Professor Ian Wilmut, scientific daddy to cloned sheep Dolly, turned his back on therapeutic human cloning and announced that he was pursuing research in the new technique, calling it not only more practical but also more socially acceptable.

Last Wednesday, New Jersey voters surprisingly rejected a ballot proposal that would have allowed the legislature to borrow $450 million for stem cell research. Many, including Senate President Richard Codey, attributed the defeat to public frustration over the state’s debt and poor fiscal policies. But Dr. Robert George of Princeton University said that is only part of the story: “The margin of victory was supplied by mainly Catholic and evangelical voters who turned out to the polls to defeat this referendum.”

Two Sundays before the election, George said, priests at all Catholic churches in the state were instructed to show a documentary film, produced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, on the science and ethics of stem cells. This awareness, coupled with efforts by New Jersey Right to Life, the New Jersey Family Policy Council (NJFPC) and others, toppled the initiative.

Voters considering the stem cell issue should know two things, George said: “One, that embryonic stem cell research involves the taking of human life. Two, that while adult stem cells have produced many helpful therapies, not only have embryonic cells not been used in therapies, they haven’t even reached the clinical trial stage. Embryonic stem cells have a tendency to cause tumors and nobody knows how to solve that problem.”

Len Deo, president of NJFPC, said in the 20 years since stem cell research was legalized in New Jersey, scientists have found 73 cures using adult stem cell research and none using embryonic stem cell research.

Though the overturn was a victory for NJFPC, Deo said the ballot initiative on Wednesday only concerned the funding for legislation that pro-life advocates have termed the “Clone and Kill” bill. “It allows for a cloned embryo to be inserted into the uterus of a woman, then (aborted for research),” he said. “It’s horrific.”