Defining stem-cell research in New York
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- May
- 13
Few have probably heard of the Empire State Stem Cell Board, which was created last year to promote stem-cell research in New York.
Promoting stem-cell research, of course, is not a simple matter, as there is a great disagreement over whether embryonic stem cells are off-limits.
The NY board has an ethics committee to deal with such matters. One of its members, a Catholic priest and bioethicist named Father Thomas Berg, has written a column charging that many government agencies may be biased against stem cell research that does not use embryonic cells.
Berg is executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic think tank.
He writes:
Last December, our Ethics Committee unanimously recommended to the Funding Committee a brief six month moratorium on the funding of controversial research projects (such as the creation of new lines of human embryonic stem cells) so that we could have time to make recommendations on the serious ethical issues involved in such research. We were roundly rebuffed, however. Such a moratorium, they argued, “would send the wrong signal to the scientific community in the State.”
The ethics board meets again today.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 7:48 am by Gary Stern.
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The world of religion, we don't have to tell you, is vast. The purpose of this blog is for Stern to note, flag and comment on some of the more interesting religious developments on the scene – weighty and quirky, somber and laughable, far away and just down the road. He won't interpret Scripture, take sides in conflicts or judge anyone. But he will take advantage of the journalist's license to observe.
