Embryonic stem cells: Bill Clinton’s double debacle

Update:Jill Stanek link corrected.

I know there’s already been some coverage of this, but the full scope of the issue is bigger than most of the coverage out there indicates (hat tips and additional links below).

Within the last month, former president Bill Clinton has done two jaw-dropping interviews at CNN on the subject of embryonic stem-cell research — one with Larry King and one with Sanjay Gupta — that indicate a stunning level of confusion on the basic biological facts of what an embryo is, what stem cells are, what “fertilization” in reproductive biology refers to, and even what can be fertilized or used to fertilize something.

While attempting to reflect on the moral and ethical implications of the issue, Clinton’s apparent ignorance of the basic biological facts was so total as to make his comments incomprehensible even on the level of biology, let alone morality and ethics.

In the first interview, from the February 17 broadcast of Larry King Live, Clinton spoke, almost in the same sentence, about “stem cells” becoming “fertilized” and being used to “fertilize eggs.” And he claims to “feel strongly about this”!

From CNN’s transcript (emphasis added):

But let me say, I feel very strongly about this. I think that I worked hard on the sequencing of the human genome. We finished it when I was president. Now there are all these practical applications being spun out of it. We’ve identified the genes that were high predictors of breast cancer. We’re getting close on Parkinson’s. We’re even making headway on Alzheimer’s. But this stem cell research, if the stem cells are frozen embryonic stem cells, if they are never going to be used to be fertilized, to bring a life into being, then I think making them available for medical research is the pro-life position and I honestly don’t understand — I would understand it if we were going and raiding stem cell banks, where these stem cells were going to be used to actually fertilize eggs and have babies. But it’s not going to happen. I think it’s very wrong to just throw these things in the trash can.

This excerpt alone is so bewildering as to defy explanation. In the first bolded section, Clinton talks about “stem cells” becoming (or not becoming) “fertilized” (suggesting that a “stem cell” is “unfertilized,” but could be “fertilized” at some future point). But in the second bolded section he refers to stem cells being used to “fertilize eggs!”

Which does he think it is? Are the “frozen embryonic stem cells” he thinks we’re talking about agents or subjects of fertilization? That is, do you “fertilize” stem cells, or “fertilize eggs” with them? (In reality, of course, neither is the case.)

“Raiding stem cell banks, where these stem cells were going to be used to actually fertilize eggs and have babies?” Raise your hand, please, if you have ever heard of anyone having a baby, or even trying to have a baby, by going to a “stem cell bank” to get “stem cells” to “fertilize eggs.”

This strange comment almost makes it sound as if he’s confusing “stem cell banks” with sperm banks — but the earlier comment about stem cells being (i.e., becoming) fertilized makes it sound as if he’s confusing “stem cells” with eggs, or ova.

Where does Clinton think the “stem cell bank” gets its embryonic stem cells? Does he not understand, or is he deliberately obfuscating, that the moral issue with using embryonic stem cells is not “what would happen” to them (i.e., whether they might be used to “bring a life into being”, whether by becoming “fertilized” or being “used to fertilize eggs”) in the future, but how we get them, i.e., by destroying an already existing embryonic life growing from a fertilized egg?

But that’s only the beginning, Last week, Clinton compounded the issue in a second CNN interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, in which he refers to conducting embryonic stem cell research using only “embryos” that will never become “fertilized” — six times. What’s more, Gupta let all six references pass without comment!

Here’s the video (excerpts below):

Excerpts from CNN’s transcript (emphasis added):

CLINTON: If it’s obvious that we’re not taking embryos that can — that under any conceivable scenario would be used for a process that would allow them to be fertilized and become little babies … then I think the American people will support this. …

GUPTA: Any reservations?

CLINTON: I don’t know that I have any reservations, but I was — he [Obama] has apparently decided to leave to the relevant professional committees the definition of which frozen embryos are basically going to be discarded, because they’re not going to be fertilized. I believe the American people believe it’s a pro-life decision to use an embryo that’s frozen and never going to be fertilized for embryonic stem cell research, especially since now, not withstanding some promising developments, most of the scientists in this field and the doctors will tell you they don’t know of any other source as good as embryonic stem cells for all the various things that need to be researched.

But those committees need to be really careful to make sure if they don’t want a big storm to be stirred up here, that any of the embryos that are used clearly have been placed beyond the pale of being fertilized before their use. There are a large number of embryos that we know are never going to be fertilized, where the people who are in control of them have made that clear. The research ought to be confined to those. …

But there are values involved that we all ought to feel free to discuss in all scientific research. And that is the one thing that I think these committees need to make it clear that they’re not going to fool with any embryos where there’s any possibility, even if it’s somewhat remote, that they could be fertilized and become human beings.

Once again, it’s hard to know where to begin. Almost as stunning as Clinton’s apparent radical confusion on Biology 101 is Gupta’s failure to comment on the factual misuse of a critical scientific term (from someone “who studied this” in Gupta’s own words) cropping up six times. Once or possibly even twice an interviewer might let a word go, if he thought it was just a slip of the tongue, but six times? (This — Gupta — was Obama’s pick for Surgeon General?)

In passing, I have to note the sheer condescension toward pro-lifers of Gupta’s opening salvo: “First of all, let me just ask you, as someone who studied this, is this going to always be as divisive an issue as it is now? Is this going to be the abortion of the next generation? Or are people going to come around?” Does he have any idea what he’s talking about? 

If we had only this interview, one might possibly speculate that Clinton simply meant to say “implanted” rather than fertilized. Six times. Of course, even on that speculation, Clinton would still be dead wrong, on several levels.

For one thing, it is not true that “most of the scientists in this field and the doctors will tell you they don’t know of any other source as good as embryonic stem cells for all the various things that need to be researched.” Especially now that cell reprogramming no longer requires viral integration to create pluripotent stem cells — and evidence continues to mount that adult and cord-blood stem cells, not embryonic stem cells, have all the practical promise and yield the effective therapies — embryonic stem cell research is effectively obsolete.

Beyond that, the idea of frozen embryos lying around (whether in stem cell banks or elsewhere) for which there is no possibility “under any conceivable (sic!) scenario”, “even if it’s remote,” of implantation and childbirth, is dodgy at best. Frozen embryo adoption may be controversial, but the fact that it’s possible at all and does occur makes Swiss cheese of Clinton’s “under any conceivable scenario/even if it’s remote” rhetoric. (The Church is still up in the air on frozen embryo adoption, but she hasn’t rejected it, and she certainly does reject destroying innocent life.) No wonder Clinton acknowledges the question of the “definition” (always a key word with him, isn’t it?) of “which frozen embryos are basically going to be discarded.”

Going further, while it’s not impossible — especially if Americans generally are at least as ignorant on the biological facts as Clinton seems to be — that many Americans would agree that a frozen embryo with no immediate prospects of being allowed to implant and grow might acceptably be destroyed for spare parts and used for research, it is certainly not “pro-life.” (Though it is true that some who might call themselves “pro-life” on abortion, e.g., Mormons, don’t view ESCR in the same light, because they view implantation rather than fertilization as the beginning of personhood. They may even say that life begins “at conception,” but by “conception” they mean implantation, not fertilization. For this reason many pro-lifers prefer to say specifically that life begins “at fertilization” rather than “at conception.” Of course, if most people understand “fertilization” no better than Clinton, it probably doesn’t make things any clearer.)

I could go on, but it’s a moot point, since combined with the Larry King interview it’s clear that Clinton’s confusion goes way beyond mixing up fertilization and implantation. In fact, the similarities of the comments in the two interviews may even suggest that Clinton is using “frozen embryonic stem cells” (in the Larry King interview) and “frozen embryos” (in the second interview) more or less synonymously. That’s right: I suspect Clinton may not understand that an “embryo” is anything more than a collection of “embryonic stem cells,” or that you have to destroy the one to obtain the other for research purposes. He certainly doesn’t seem to understand what is being destroyed, or what stem cells once obtained might be good for (since he seems to think you can “fertilize eggs” with them).

This is a Rhodes scholar and a two-term president, a man who claims to have thought seriously about life issues — who has signed (and vetoed) legislation on life issues?

Having said all that, it must be noted that in one important respect Clinton’s thoughts on ESCR are actually superior to President Obama’s: At least Clinton realizes that ESCR raises serious moral and ethical issues. President Obama’s recent address shows a complete dearth of similar insight.

There’s been a lot of commentary on Obama’s speech. I’ll restrict myself here to a couple of excerpts from Charles Krauthammer, who says that he is “not religious” and does not believe that personhood begins “at conception”:

Obama’s address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the “false choice between sound science and moral values.” Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the “use of cloning for human reproduction.”

Does he not think that a cloned human would be of extraordinary scientific interest? And yet he banned it.

In conclusion:

Dr. James Thomson, the pioneer of embryonic stem cells, said “if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” Obama clearly has not.

Nuff said.

Some additional links:

Bill Clinton to Gupta on CNN: Ok to research embryos if they’re not fertilized (Jill Stanek – Hat tip for the Larry King catch)

Video: Bill Clinton doesn’t understand human biology? (Hot Air – Hat tip for the Jill Stanek link)

American Adults, Presidents, Flunk Basic Science (First Things)

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta Fails to Correct Bill Clinton’s Multiple ‘Embryos Aren’t Fertilized’ Gaffe (NewsBusters)