A San Carlos startup is offering to create "personalized" stem cells from the spare embryos of fertility clinic clients on the chance that the cells, frozen and stored away, may some day help a family member benefit from medical breakthroughs.

The novel business plan of StemLifeLine Inc. - which started promoting its service to fertility patients earlier this year as "insurance for the future" - set off a flash fire of protest from stem cell research opponents and supporters alike.

The outcry from anti-abortion groups wasn't surprising. StemLifeLine derives stem cells from very early stage human embryos, which are destroyed in the process. Opponents of the research see this as the moral equivalent of killing a child. This belief is the basis of the Bush administration's limits on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

But some of the most fervent denunciations of StemLifeLine came from vigorous supporters of embryonic stem cell research. Two Stanford University critics aired their complaints in newspaper editorial pages. A prominent Stanford ethicist challenged UC San Francisco scientists who are advisers of the company to sever those ties. These critics accuse StemLifeLine of trying to profit from the promise of stem cell research in the present, even though the work may not yield medical treatments for decades, if ever.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Life Ethics • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

1. mdiebel wrote: Thank you for posting this, but please don’t lose sight of the practice of cryo-embryo adoptions which is another form of creating a family and which is currently being done.  I believe this is much more urgent.  This allows a mom to adopt an embryo (or a set of embryos) and carry to term.  The child, thus created, is born to this mom, but isn’t genetically related.  One of the matters arising here is what that child will be told about their origins.  Society still doesn’t see that the child should have an inherent right to know his/her story.  Further, most of us don’t understand what it is like growing up with a very unusual genesis story like this.  Adoptees and children / adults from surrogate relationships have something to say about this… a cautionary message.  Please do not rush into this without hearing from the children… and in the event of children yet unborn… listen to the grown children who have similar sorts of experience. October 30, 7:26 pm | [comment link]

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