” “Germany: the go-ahead to the import ” “of stem cells

The Bundestag, the lower Chamber of the German parliament, has authorized the import of stem cells removed from human embryos, though subject to strict limitations. The decision was taken by 340 votes in favour and 265 against, after the favourable opinion expressed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and by the parliamentary commission of bioethics. In a joint declaration, the president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, and the president of the Council of Evangelical Churches, Manfred Koch, expressed their disappointment about the provision. “By this decision – they write – the right to life and its unlimited protection from the moment of conception are no longer guaranteed. The decision of the Bundestag is contrary to the spirit of the law that safeguards the embryo”. In this way, they add, “it will become possible in Germany too to conduct experiments on human embryonal stem cells” obtained “through the killing of embryos”. The history of the new law. Reviewing the history of the new law and its implications in Germany may be useful to understand the great debate which began as a specialized issue of interest only to a narrow circle of experts, but soon conquered German public opinion and the front pages of the press. It also became a more properly political issue of debate. Approved on 13 December 1990, the Embrionenschutzgesetz, the law on the protection of the embryo is one of the most stringent and restrictive laws of its kind: it bans in vitro fertilization of heterologous type, and the practice of surrogate motherhood, and only admits homologous fertilization for purposes of pregnancy, though even in this case it stipulates that no more than three embryos may be generated and that all three must be implanted. Experimentation on stem cells. Consensus was gradually eroded after Clinton and Blair, in the USA and Britain, with huge injections of private capital, gave the go-ahead to experimentation on embryonal stem cells, and so ensured their respective countries positions of pre-eminence in this field. In the German scientific community, and also among some politicians, including Chancellor Schröder, the idea gained ground that Germany should not remain behind other countries in this research. Not being able to use embryos produced in Germany in the fertility centres for which the law made provision, groups of researchers came to the conclusion they would have to seek the material for their research abroad, exploiting a kind of legislative loophole on the basis of which it is not in fact illegal to import embryos from abroad, even though in principle such import is prohibited. In June last year it was reported that the politician Wolfgang Clement (SPD) had travelled to Israel and, together with the scientists Oliver Brustle and Otmar Wiesle of the University of Bonn, had gone to the University of Haifa to wrap up a deal on the import of embryonal stem cells. News of this event triggered off a lively debate, in which the memory of the medical experimentations on Jews during the Nazi period was still very much alive. The National Ethical Council. The President of the Republic Rau has also brought the institutional authority of his position to bear on this debate. In a speech delivered on 18 May last year, he appealed to the spirit of the German Constitution, which enunciates human dignity as a primary value, to be safeguarded at all costs. Chancellor Schröder, in favour of the research, then set up a National Ethical Council in July, with an exclusively advisory role; at the end of November 2002 it issued its opinion by recommending a three year moratorium in which importation of stem cells would be permitted before proceeding to any amendment of the law. So much for the history of the question before the vote in the Bundestag on 30 January. P.C.¤