Among the right questions and answers on bioethics…

You will always find Robbie George.

Princeton Prof. Robert George has an article in the National Review Online on the latest stumble in the marathon to develop acceptable stem cell technology.

A stem-cell study published in the journal Nature last week set off a media frenzy. Headlines in all the major newspapers promised pluripotent (i.e., embryonic or embryonic-type) stem cells without the destruction of embryos. That’s what many people on both sides of the debate over embryo-destructive stem-cell research had been hoping for. But, alas, it turned out to be all hype…

The specific story as recounted in the press was roughly this: Researchers were able to remove a single cell from a living human embryo without destroying that embryo. The single cell was then developed in culture into an embryonic stem cell. Since the removal of single cells from eight-cell embryos is a regular practice in some assisted-reproduction clinics (as part of a process of screening embryos for genetic abnormalities), this could be done routinely without harming human embryos and could allow for new stem cell lines with no ethical problems.But it turned out not to be true.

In fact…

the study did virtually nothing to prove the point that Advanced Cell Technology (the company that carried out the experiments) had argued in the press: that single cells removed from an early embryo and cultured by themselves can produce lines of embryonic stem cells.

So far as I am aware, only the Los Angeles Times took note of this little wrinkle in ACT’s heavily publicized tale, but even the Times didn’t pay it much heed. The paper noted: “Although the embryos were destroyed in this experiment, Lanza said it was not necessary to destroy the embryos for the procedure to work.” If it was not necessary, why did his team do it? Certainly they would have had a better story to tell if they hadn’t.

The press missed a good chance to ask the right question, and the follow up story that answer would have produced. But they missed it.

However,

the story of emerging techniques to derive embryonic-like stem cells without harming embryos — may well turn out to be the scientific (and perhaps the political) good news story of the year.

Why?

Last year the President’s Council on Bioethics carefully considered embryo biopsy among other techniques for developing embryonic-like stem cells without doing harm to human embryos. The Council concluded decisively and (uncharacteristically for the quarrelsome group) unanimously that the technique described in this week’s publication could not be ethically pursued in humans. But the Council report also considered other possible ethically uncontroversial ways forward, and it is that larger picture — the emerging range of options for non-embryo-destructive means of producing pluripotent stem cells — that is the real story of the past year. It is a very positive story, and one that seems increasingly likely to put our troubling societal division over stem cells behind us.

There it is. The hope beyond the hype. Prof. George is on the President’s Council on Bioethics and understand this better than most of the voices I’ve heard quoted in news stories.

Those of us who defend embryonic human life have vigorously supported non-embryo-destructive methods of obtaining pluripotent cells. We are not opposed to stem-cell research, or even embryonic-stem-cell research, as such. We are opposed only to practices that harm or destroy human embryos — who are, as all the leading works of modern embryology attest, human individuals at the earliest stage of development. If research did not require the destruction or exploitation of human embryos, we would be fully prepared to support it.President Bush and a huge bipartisan majority in Congress have also voiced support for ethically unproblematic ways forward. “Researchers are investigating new techniques that might allow doctors and scientists to produce stem cells just as versatile as those derived from human embryos without harming life,” the president said last month, “we must continue to explore these hopeful alternatives, so we can advance the cause of scientific research while staying true to the ideals of a decent and humane society.”

There’s a lot of needless controversy over stem cells, and it’s only made worse by a confused — or tendentious — media. So look to the voices of reason and morality in these fields for clarity. George is one you can count on.

The real news, then, is not about one grossly hyped study published by a publicity-hungry biotech firm. Rather, it is about the promise that pluripotent-stem-cell science can proceed without human embryo-killing. It is very good news.