New York Permits Purchase of Eggs from Women for Stem Cell Research

In June, 2009, the New York State legislature, determined to increase embryonic stem cell research, has convinced the Empire State Stem Cell Board to allow payment of up to $10,000 to women for the purchase of their eggs. This Board is charged with overseeing taxpayer funded stem cell grants and research. The Empire State Stem Cell Board will now decide how to spend the $600 million in state funding for stem cell research.

New York is the first state to authorize taxpayer funded purchase of human eggs for the purpose of research. The purchase of eggs has been a bioethical taboo and guidelines were written by the Academy of Science in 2005 prohibiting payment for eggs. The internal guidelines of some New York stem cell research centers, including Rockefeller University, Cornell University and the Sloan-Kettering Institute, prohibit paying for eggs.

The Washington Post quoted David Hohn, vice chairman of the Empire State Stem Cell Board's two committees that were in favor of the decision, as saying, "We want to enhance the potential of stem cell research. If we are going to encourage stem cell research as a solution for a variety of diseases, we should remove barriers to the greatest extent possible. We decided to break some new territory."

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this is going to create a kind of undue inducement, a scenario in which a person can feel unduly compelled to take advantage of a situation," said the Rev. Thomas Berg, director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Roman Catholic research group, and the only member of the stem cell ethics committee to vote against compensation.

In order for a woman to have her eggs harvested for research, she would need to receive weeks of hormone injections in order to stimulate her ovaries to produce a larger amount of eggs than during a normal cycle. Then, she would need to have her eggs extracted which can be painful. Concerns do exist about the long-term effects of hormonal stimulation or the dangerous overstimulation of the ovaries, both of which are unknown risks to the woman undergoing the procedure.

The ethics of embryonic stem cell research also remains in question. In order to research embryonic stem cells, an embryo is destroyed by removing the cells that are the essential part of the embryo. Many are opposed to the destruction of life for the purpose of research. Proponents of embryonic stem cell research believe that the taking of the life of an embryo is not as important as the good that may potentially occur from research on those cells.

In a previous article on new breakthroughs in adult stem cell research, Adult Stem Cell Research Leads to Method to Replace Damaged Heart Tissue, I noted that Italian researchers have successfully developed a method to repair a damaged heart from adult stem cells. Settimio Grimaldi, an expert at the Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine in Rome where this method was researched, spoke to Vatican Radio on August 15, saying, "The adult stem cell is already prepared to differentiate in the tissue we want to repair. And it is certainly more productive, less wasteful and less dangerous - beyond the ethical aspects -to work with adult stem cells instead of embryonic stem cells." This new method involves injecting damaged heart tissue with cardiac stem cells that have been isolated via this new method developed by the Italian researchers. It is hoped that this method will be available for human use after animal testing in about three years. Grimaldi believes this method will allow those who have had a heart attack to lead a normal life, which would include the ability to continue working and playing sports.

The same question that I posed in my prior article is worthy of being asked again when it comes to the purchase of eggs for the purpose of embryonic stem cell research. Why should tax payers who believe embryonic stem cell research is ethically and morally unjust be forced to fund research with their tax dollars which to date has not produced any worthy scientific results, particularly in light of the promising research on adult stem cells which poses no moral or ethical questions? Now, with New York using taxpayer dollars to fund the purchase of eggs that will be used to create an embryo to be destroyed for research, many New Yorkers might be asking the same question. Think about it.

Sources:

Washington Post.com

New York Times.com

Westchester Institute.net