Recent breakthroughs in "stem cell" research--biomedical research utilizing human unspecialized, early embryonic cells--have reopened a long-standing debate around governmental involvement in embryo research. In 1998, two groups of scientists announced that they had successfully isolated and cultivated stem cells, which are widely considered to hold enormous promise in treating a range of human diseases--from Parkinson's disease to diabetes to cancer. The scientists' work, which was privately funded, prompted key members of Congress to hold hearings on the new research and, in doing so, to reexamine the impact of a four-year-old prohibition on federal funding for research involving human embryos. At the same time, the breakthroughs spurred National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Harold Varmus to request a legal opinion from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as to whether research utilizing stem cells is proscribed by the funding ban.
In the midst of the congressional hearings, DHHS attorneys declared that federal funds could, in fact, be used to support stem cell research because the cells are not a "human embryo" within the statutory definition of that term. The opinion was received with open arms by medical researchers and patient advocacy groups alike, while the staunchest antiabortion factions in Congress rallied to oppose it as a violation of the "letter and spirit of the federal law."
Reproductive health advocates responded to the opinion with some ambivalence. While praising the decision to support this critical research, they also expressed concern that permitting stem cell research to go forward with federal funding would take whatever steam there might be out of the already uphill battle to repeal the embryo research funding ban altogether. And that, many argue, will be necessary to make real progress in the areas of contraceptive technology, infertility and birth defects prevention.