Research on early embryos is valuable and ethical, writes David McConnell in response to the Catholic bishops
The Catholic Bishops' Conference recently met the Taoiseach and urged him to block EU-funded research on human embryos. While I welcome all contributions to the debate, I suspect that the Catholic bishops do not represent the views of the majority of Irish people on this matter. Nor are they the only thoughtful commentators on embryo research.
Such research should be supported not just in the EU but also in Ireland, because it is both medically valuable and ethical acceptable.
Studies of human embryos became world news with the birth of Louise Brown in England in July 1978. She was created as a result of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in the laboratory of Drs Edwards and Steptoe. Many thousands of "test tube babies" have been born since, bringing much joy into the world.
The Catholic Church believes that IVF is wrong partly for the same reason that it believes that embryo research is wrong. The Church believes that a fertilised egg or an embryo is a person and should not be harmed intentionally in any way. We need to understand that surplus embryos are produced by IVF and most are either killed or allowed to die before they reach 14 days of life after fertilisation.
All the arguments about embryonic stem cells come down to this question. Is a fertilised egg or an early embryo a person who deserves the same respect as any other person? If so then IVF, IUDs, the morning-after pill and research on human embryos should all be illegal in Ireland, because all lead to the killing of early embryos.
It would be helpful if the Church and its spokespersons accepted that there is a thoughtful divergence of view on the main question. Almost all biologists and doctors that I have met in the last 40 years do not believe that a fertilised egg or an early embryo is a person.
Instead they would argue that the development of a person is a continuous biological process. Many philosophers and theologians would take this view, and many lay people. The fertilised egg is a single cell that grows into a formless ball of undifferentiated cells; these implant in the womb 5-6 days after fertilisation and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the embryo acquires features which we can identify as primitive organs. Ever so slowly it matures over many months into a tiny and beautiful foetus capable of being born.
Since 1978 Britain has led the way in careful and thoughtful discussions about whether and how human embryos made in vitro (meaning "in glass") should be protected, and how IVF services and embryo research should be regulated. The British approach to the whole subject has been exemplary, partly because it has sought to accommodate knowledge from biology, medicine, ethics and law.
The UK government set up a commission in 1982, chaired by Lady Warnock, herself a mother and a former teacher, and an eminent philosopher, and it reported in 1984. Of course it recognised that there were serious moral questions to be addressed and noted that for many people the moral principle that an embryo is an innocent person "outweighs any possible benefit".
But in the end Warnock, influenced by knowledge of human biology, did not accept that an early embryo was a person deserving the same rights as a baby or adult. It recognised that great benefits would come from research on early embryos and that these outweighed the benefits of absolute protection.
It did say that there were grave dilemmas especially about the stage at which an embryo should be treated as a person. It took account of the fact that an embryo is human and recommended that "the embryo of the human species should be afforded some protection in law". The most difficult question for the Warnock Commission, and for all of us, still, is what kind of protection should be given to the human embryo at different stages in its development.
The Warnock Commission concluded that all work on human embryos should be supervised under law. It advised that "a new statutory licensing authority be established to regulate both research and fertility services". The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act became law in 1990 and The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) was established soon afterwards. The HFEA sponsors and regulates IVF services and research on human embryos. (It is well worthwhile visiting the HFEA website at http://www.hfea.gov.uk/)
The HFE Act states that no research can be carried out on an embryo more than 14 days after fertilisation. Why did Warnock decide that research could be carried out on an embryo up to "14 days after fertilisation" and not afterwards? Of course the decision was to some extent arbitrary because it is a point in a gradual process, but it was also conservative.
The 14-day embryo is a tiny speck about one fifth of a millimetre in length. Few biologists would make the case, or even be moved intuitively to think, that it is a person. It has no brain cells nor any other nerve cells, so it has no capacity for feeling or thought and it cannot experience hurt. Most of the cells will give rise to the placenta and foetal membranes - only a small number of the cells will give rise to the embryo proper.
At a different level the blob of cells certainly does not look like a person - embryos of this age look much the same whether they are fish, salamander, rabbit or human. Its individuality is not even decided - in the early stages it may break into two parts, which may go on to become twins. The fact that an embryo has a unique set of genes does not define the full "character" of the person. Otherwise, identical twins, which have the same set of genes, would have to be thought of as one person.
On the other hand many biologists know that research on early embryos will contribute greatly to medical care. In the UK such research is permitted if it concerns infertility, congenital disease, miscarriage, contraception, chromosomal abnormality, or the treatment of serious disease for example through the study of stem cells.
Adults contain stem cells. Many people are familiar with bone marrow cells; these are stem cells that give rise to the blood, and they are used in "bone marrow transplantation" to treat leukaemia. Scientists believe that they will be able to isolate a much greater range of stem cell lines from early embryos than from adults, and they hope that their studies might lead to treatments for many different diseases, in particular those caused by premature and slow degeneration of tissues, for example Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, CJD, multiple sclerosis (MS) and muscular dystrophy.
It will be disappointing and shameful if the EU cannot fund, and if Irish doctors and scientists are not allowed to work on, such worthy projects. Many of us cannot see any harm whatsoever in such studies and we are sure that they will contribute to the relief of human suffering. For me the moral balance is quite clearly weighted in favour of research on very early human embryos which have not been implanted.
One other question also arises: what will the Church say when treatments become available for MS or Parkinson's, which are discovered through research on early embryos or might even use cell lines grown from such embryos? I have no doubt how most patients and their families will respond and I am sure that such treatments will ultimately become available in Irish hospitals. And I suppose in a few centuries time the Church will apologise to Drs Edwards and Steptoe, and the thousands of their colleagues, in the same way as it recently apologised to Galileo.
• David McConnell is Professor of Genetics at Trinity College, Dublin, and chairman of The Irish Times Trust.