The International Society for Stem Cell Research Issues Its "Ethical Guidelines": Anything Goes.(Guidelines for the Conduct of Embryonic Stem Cell Research)

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) recently announced its "Guidelines for the Conduct of Embryonic Stem Cell Research." The results are not encouraging.

The Guidelines claim to "emphasize the responsibility of scientists to ensure that human stem cell research is carried out according to rigorous standard of research ethics." But saying it doesn't make it so. What the document actually does is paste a veneer of ethical analysis on top of the "anything goes" mentality that suffuses biotechnology and main-stream bioethics today.

Of course, what is deemed "ethical" in biotechnology depends in large part on, to borrow a phrase from President Bush, the deciders. Unsurprisingly, many of the members of the ISSCR "International Human Embryonic Research Guidelines Task Force," who wrote the Guidelines, are well known for advocating that scientists be given an open field.

University of Wisconsin bioethics professor R. Alta Charo, for example, has stated that a legal ban on all human cloning would violate scientists' First Amendment right to conduct research. Another task force bioethicist, Northwestern University's Laurie Zoloth, previously advocated applying what she considers a "Jewish" understanding of the moral status of human embryos to guide the ethics of stem-cell researchwhich is to say, she would give embryos no moral status at all when outside the womb, and treat them "as if they are simply water" for the first 40 days of gestation.

Stanford University stem cell biologist Irving Weissman, another task force member, made headlines in 2005 when he reportedly announced plans to create a mouse with a human brain. Then there is Ian Wilmut, who supervised the cloning of Dolly the sheep, and who supports reproductive cloning at least for people who can't otherwise bear genetically related offspring. He also recently suggested tossing aside the usual rules that govern human medical experimentation in order to allow dying patients to be injected with embryonic stem cells, even though they are currently unsafe for human use.

So, how far do the ISSCR Guidelines want to allow embryonic stem cell researchers to go? A lo-o-o-ong way. Remember when embryonic stem cell activists assured the nation that all they wanted to do was conduct experiments with leftover IVF embryos that were going to be destroyed anyway? Not anymore. The "rigorous" ISSCR research guidelines explicitly endorse the creation of new human embryosboth through IVF fertilization and somatic cell nuclear transfer cloningfor use and destruction in stem-cell research.

As with most bioethical documents of this kind, much emphasis is given to self regulation. Accordingly, the task force suggests that research be regulated by "institutional review." These may not be rubber stamp committees, but you can bet that the boards will also not be heterogeneous in bioethical outlook: No stem cell skeptics need apply.