FIRST PAGE
While the European Union is not planning to fund research plans aimed at destructing embryos to produce stem cells, however it has given the go-ahead to the Eu funding of the phases that follow the destruction of human embryos. “The Eu Commission – reads the text of the Eu presidency – will not submit to the management committee any proposal for research plans that involve the destruction of human embryos to produce stem cells. The ban on the funding of such schemes will not prevent the Eu from funding the following phases which include stem cells from human embryos”. Some sectors however are not included: “Research aimed at human cloning for reproductive purposes; research aiming at altering the genetic inheritance of human beings which could make such alterations inheritable; research aiming at creating human embryos for research purposes or for the provision of stem cells, also by transferring nuclei of somatic cells”. The decision, which Italy and Germany too voted for, sounds like a compromise, a sort of two-faced choice: on one side, it prohibits the destruction of human embryos in order to take stem cells, on the other side it authorises research into stem lines from destroyed human embryos. The embryos will be destroyed in private laboratories and then the resulting stem lines will be bought by the Eu researchers. Scientifically, the decision taken by the Eu implies some explanation: what is the discriminating moment that establishes that the lines of stem cells can be taken from the embryo, which is bound to be destroyed anyway? The fact no specific date has been fixed for the destruction of the embryos shows, once again unacceptable ambiguity: researchers could abstain from asking for funds for projects involving the destruction of embryos and ask for such funds maybe later for research into the cell lines that have been taken from the destroyed embryos. However, something can still be done, since the final approval will not be given by Eu Parliament until next autumn. We can do something, so that we can move from the two-faced decision, i.e. universal contradictoriness, to a truly brave decision: the embryo can never be destroyed. This principle is not negotiable, and the future of Europe and real progress depend on it. The alternative is not between backwardness and the treatment – which is still just a possibility – of some diseases, but between ambiguity and progress respectful to man. As long as political compromise is sought, philosophical distinctions will proliferate, as the one that would value implantable embryos only. As to the respect of human life, from its rise to its decline, no cultural mediations are possible. We can only hope Eu Parliament will listen to two voices: the voice of science that makes no distinctions in the value of the different steps of the development of human life and that, in other areas, shows how much more promising it is to work on adult stem cells. And the voice of the many European citizens, who rightly fear there are economic power games behind the politicians’ uncertainties.
