Politics Number of Embryos “Adopted” is Negligible
So far, according to Newsweek, only 128 of 400,000 frozen embryos stored in medical facilities around the country have been “adopted,” resulting in pregnancies. Thanks in part to Bush’s veto of legislation expanding federal stem-cell research last week, the vast majority of these embryos will be thrown away instead of being used for potentially life-saving research—research prominent scientist Steven Hawking, who suffers from incurable motor neurone disease, called “morally equivalent to taking a heart transplant from a victim of a car accident” in a statement to the Independent this week.
The comparison to organ donation has always seemed particularly apt. Both involve the collection of human tissue from what most people would not consider to be a living human being.
The rules for organ donation also seem like they would work well for the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines ; no buying or selling of human material, consent, and public oversight.
To me this is the most asinine aspect of Bush's policy: It does nothing to address the serious moral concerns involved during the destruction of even a very early embryo. Public funding of sensitive research guarantees that the public gets to set and enforce the rules, and that everything that is being done gets scrutinized. Under bush, if you have money, anything can be done, and it can be done in the shadows.