Arthur Caplan: Obama election signals change in stem cell fight
The vast majority of emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). Yesterday, I only received nine out-of-office autoreplies from 314 emails: for example, 80 emails to the European Network of Cancer Registries yielded three autoreplies; 43 to the University of California San Francisco, just two. From 138 emails I didn’t receive a single autoreply: 51 were sent to the University of Wisconsin Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Center and 87 to the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. Hardly surprising no one signed. In fact, this week I have sent a total of 640 emails, which have resulted in just one signature (two weeks ago, it took 1,072 emails for the same result). We really have little option in this situation other than to play the odds and get off as many emails as we can in the hope that a few get through - the petition has so far been signed by 580 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Laureates.
For the last two days a cleaner has been arriving at the place we sleep in at night at 4.00am, twenty minutes before we get up - since 7 September we have been sleeping tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a building, down some twelve steps (prior to that we slept for almost two years in a porch). This morning this guy was outside the building as we were packing and, when he reappeared with a hose to fill his bucket, we wondered if we were in for at least the wetting we got on 3 November (see blog “State Stem Cell Policies Deserve National Attention”). We are again keeping our fingers crossed for this weekend in the Catholic Manna Centre, where Declan was assaulted on 19 June (see blog “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”); and should this cleaner get out of hand on Monday morning we will seek to make a statement in the local police station, which should make for some interesting online writing. 
We believe that the momentum is swinging behind Declan’s petition and what will be our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. In the US, the election of President-elect Barack Obama “signals a shift in the bioethics debate,” writes Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics of the University of Pennsylvania, in an MSNBC.com opinion piece. (Caplan is one of the world’s most quoted medical ethicists - and one of the first signatories of Declan’s petition.)
According to Caplan, last week’s US presidential election will be remembered for its impact on core bioethical topics that have long dominated American domestic politics, including embryonic stem cell research and abortion rights. Caplan writes that the failure of state ballot initiatives that aimed to restrict abortion rights signals that the abortion debate may be subsiding, while newer bioethical concerns that are likely to dominate American politics for years to come, including physician-assisted suicide, are emerging. In addition, he argues, the election of President-elect Obama has brought the fight over embryonic stem cell research in the US “to an end”, because Obama has pledged to lift federal restrictions on the research.
Caplan points out that the passage of Michigan’s Proposal 2 – allowing research on embryos that were created for fertility treatments and would otherwise be discarded – means that 10 states now have laws permitting embryonic stem cell research. “These 10 are likely to be the recipients of an executive order that the new president will undoubtedly sign shortly after taking office, freeing up federal funds for embryonic stem cell research while laying out new regulatory guidelines,” Caplan writes. He adds: “Many, including myself, would argue that the ongoing debate over the morality of stem cell research is really just a stalking horse for the abortion debate.” And efforts to further restrict abortion did not fare well at the ballot box, with voters in South Dakota and California both rejecting efforts to restrict abortion rights, Caplan notes. In addition, a Colorado ballot measure that would have defined a fertilised egg as a person with constitutional rights failed by a measure of three to one.
“Taken all together, this series of votes represents an important moment in public bioethics in America,” Caplan writes. “Like it or not – and I am well aware that many are not ready to let go of these issues – the nation may be starting to move past the endless battles over stem cells, embryos and abortion.” He argues that embryonic stem cell research is advancing, embryos are not going to be given legal status as persons and further restrictions on abortion are unlikely. As these issues fade from the spotlight, how Americans die and treat painful medical conditions will emerge as the dominant bioethical debate (Caplan, MSNBC.com, 6/11).
Right to Life and the Michigan Catholic Conference – two longtime powerhouse cultural warriors in state politics – underwent a rugged and uncustomary Election Day, said The Detroit News. They watched a ballot proposal they had feverishly championed with millions of dollars go down to defeat. And many anti-abortion candidates fell to abortion-rights advocates.
“It was probably the worst night Right to Life has had in Michigan in a couple of decades,” Bill Ballenger, a former state senator and publisher of the Inside Michigan Politics newsletter, told The Detroit News. “And the Catholic Church hierarchy has to be embarrassed that the church spent $5 million in a failed effort to defeat a ballot proposal to ease embryonic stem cell research given all the other problems out there and the church’s social justice mission,” he said.
According to The Detroit News, neither the Catholic church nor Right to Life was willing to say they had suffered irreversible setbacks and said they still would be able to pursue an agenda that protects the dignity of life and other issues important to the church. One of the first things they want to look at is regulations for the stem cell issue, Proposal 2, which the church bitterly fought. Detroit News exit polling showed 56 percent of voters who identified themselves as Catholic supported Proposal 2 – overall the measure passed by a 53-47 margin. (Cain, Detroit News, 13/11).
One quote that I think particularly complements Caplan’s opinion piece comes from Marci Hamilton, the Paul R Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law. She opens her legal commentary in FindLaw, titled “The Five Religion-Related Issues that Should Most Concern the Future Obama Administration”, by writing: “With the election of Obama, there is finally some hope that the United States can turn to a more rational set of policies relating to religion.”
