Playing God?

Science

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By Paula Hammond

For centuries, science and religion have been viewed as opposing schools of study – one dealing with the physical and quantifiable and one with the spiritual and unknowable. However, recent work on stem cells has brought the two worlds together in a way that raises serious ethical issues for anyone working in this controversial field.

Magic Bullets

Bioethicist Alexander Capron described stem cells as, “the foundation of organisms, the stalk from which everything buds and branches.” These incredible cells have the ability to replenish themselves, enabling damaged organs and tissues to be repaired. Embryonic cells are ‘undifferentiated’, meaning they’re still unspecialized and may become any cell in the body. But by the time we reach adulthood, stem cells have become specialists, with the ability to repair only the cells from the specific organ that they originate from.

It’s been known for decades that these cells can be used like first aid kits, but since the 1990s, remarkable progress has been made in the field of stem cell therapy.

Stem Cells can treat diseases like Parkinsons

Blood stem cells taken from bone marrow are now routinely used in the treatment of leukemia. In 1999, neural stem cells from a patient with Parkinson’s Disease, were reintroduced into the patient’s brain tissue, producing a 40–50 percent improvement in some motor tasks . In 2003 doctors successfully transplanted corneal stem cells into damaged eyes to restore limited vision . In 2004, researchers were able to partially restore movement to a paralyzed woman using stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood. So it’s no wonder that stem cells are increasingly viewed as the ‘magic bullet’ with which to treat everything from diabetes to Alzheimer’s.

However, almost as soon as news of these first breakthroughs were reported, Governments and concerned individuals waded in, in an attempt to prevent what they viewed as research which was – at best – questionable and at worst highly immoral.

The Stuff of Life

Embryonic stem cells may be the most flexible type of stem cells, but they’re also the most controversial because sourcing them involves the destruction of fertilized human eggs .

It has been shown that it’s possible to send normal adult stem cells back to an undifferentiated ‘pluripotent’ state. Amniotic stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells are also the subjects of active research. Until further breakthroughs, though, the most promising treatments still require the use of embryonic cells, which must be extracted from a human egg within the first 4-6 days after fertilization.

The problem is that while all world religions emphasize the importance of protecting human life, no religion, including Islam, has a consensus on when life begins and rulings on the subject have been fraught with controversy.

While Israel allows the use of embryonic stem cells, the Catholic Church only supports cell research using adult cells or those sourced from umbilical cord blood, rejecting any treatments that “involve… harm to human beings at any state of development.” Muslim scholars consider life to start 40-120 days after conception when the fetus is imbued with a soul. So the use of embryonic stem cells is not in itself problematic to Islamic science. The concern lies in the fact that fetuses may be aborted simply to provide stem cells for research which will ultimately provide a ‘moral model’, whereby human fetuses become the raw materials for potentially costly – and therefore lucrative – medical procedures.

Friends and Enemies

The controversial nature of stem cell research has led to public outcries, outright bans and general confusion. Britain, Finland and Sweden, for instance, allow embryonic stem cell research. In Austria, Ireland and Germany it’s banned. Switzerland actually addressed the subject in a referendum, gaining public approval for the use of embryonic stem cells that would otherwise be discarded following in vitro fertilisation. The United States is far from united on the topic either. While officially limiting federal funding on stem cell research, it allows individual states to fund research as they see fit. The result is that, sadly, many scientists have sought to distance themselves from an area of study which, while of huge potential benefit to humankind, is seen as ‘too hot to handle’.

However Islamic nations are bucking the trend and embracing the possibilities that stem cell research and therapy represents. In Dubai there are public and private stem cell banks, potentially allowing people to store their own umbilical cord blood to use in future treatments. In 2002 in Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei declared that experimentation with human embryos was consistent with Shia tradition. Today, Iran has some of the most liberal laws on stem cell research in the world. The Islamic Fiqh Council in Jeddah has ruled that it has no problems with using stem cells to treat disease, as long as the embryonic material has come either from a miscarriage or excess embryos left over from in-vitro fertilisation procedures. Tunisia has similar guidelines. While, in January, Jordan passed a law to regulate research and therapy using embryonic stem cells – the first such laws in the Islamic region.

Rather than religion being the ‘enemy’ of science, it has in fact provided Muslim scientists with a valuable sounding board for research of international importance. Indeed scientists at the world class Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, Stem Cell Biology and Technology, work hand in glove with an Ethics Committee, who are able to give both guidance and reassurance that stem cell research and Islam – with its emphasis on preventing human illness and suffering – are compatible.

“We should [move] towards treating humans by this method …” a member of the Ethics Committee was quoted as saying in a recent, anonymous study “… we have to consider the ethical debates. This is our duty. [But] there is no prohibition [on research] in Iran and our policy is open-minded.” It’s an approach that has not only put Muslim scientists at the forefront of stem cell research but proved that religion and science needn’t necessarily be enemies.

Paula Hammond is a professional author of over 35 non-fiction books, including popular science volumes on fossils, dinosaurs and endangered animals. She has a passion for learning and the wonders of the natural world.

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