What stem cells reveal about humanity

It is perhaps appropriate that the first feature-length film using entirely computer-generated actors and backgrounds is called Final Fantasy. After all, the idea of creating a human who can be manipulated at will is a recurring human fantasy. Over 200 people laboured for over four years to bring the film's star, Aki, to you.

Why, you might ask, did they bother, given that the film has received mixed reviews, most of which comment on the amazing technology but bewail the pedestrian plot? Well, according to its creator, Sakaguchi, revered almost as a god in computer gaming circles, it was the next logical step. Having pushed the boundaries in computer games, the next obvious challenge was to make a film.

There is no attempt to pretend that these are real human beings. Instead, a style described as hyper-real is used. However, although it remains prohibitively expensive, the technology apparently exists to create a photo-real human facsimile which could potentially star in a film without any of us being the wiser. Our certainty about what is and is not a human being is about to be radically undermined in the area of film.

There may well be some potential for abuse here; for example, in using someone's appearance to generate a lookalike digital star. Aside from actors, however, most of us will not lose sleep over the moral dilemmas. Of rather more concern is that our certainty about what is and is not a human being is being radically undermined by scientific research.

Take the issue of research on human embryonic stem cells. There is no doubt that some medical breakthroughs could accrue from research using these cells, although they are unlikely to happen as soon as is being claimed by advocates. It may well take years or even decades before these stem cells yield their secrets. Still, it may well result in medical breakthroughs bringing hope to many.

So why not do it? We are back at that awkward definition of what it is to be human. There would be public horror and distress at the suggestion that newborns should be destroyed to further medical research. Rewind the clock nine months, and a tiny clump of cells no bigger than a full stop does not have the same photogenic or cuddly qualities. Far easier to ridicule the notion that this is human life deserving of protection of her or his rights.

Odd, though, that the ability at one and the same time to speak about the lack of value of the embryo, and the supreme value of its cells, seems to be a prerequisite among advocates of this research.

When trying to prove that the embryo has no rights, it is described as a clump of cells, or a tiny dot, with no resemblance to a child. When trying to justify human embryonic stem cell research, it is the key to life, a treasure house of knowledge, irreplaceable in the fight against disease.

Similarly, in another argument designed to justify destroying embryos, it is pointed out that at this stage of development the embryo could not possibly be termed an individual because it has the potential to divide again to form two or even more individuals. This must be one of the first times in history that the potential to do harm to more than one human life instead of just one is used to justify an action.

There are other promising avenues available which do not involve the destruction of human embryos, such as the research in Dublin City University by Prof Martin Clynes and his team. They are researching the use of mouse stem cells in an attempt to cure insulin production problems in humans. Yet the key issue is not the availability of other methods, but whether it is right or not to destroy human life.

Interesting, is it not, that Germany has one of the toughest laws on embryo experimentation? The shudders of guilt which still ripple through the German psyche at the excesses committed in the name of medical research in the last century may protect them from similar disregard for human dignity today.

Those Nazi medical experiments may well have yielded breakthrough medical knowledge. The cost was far too high. The end did not justify the means. In contrast, President Bush's endorsement of the use of federal funds for this kind of research was the action of a moral marshmallow.

Even before Mr Bush decided that work involving so-called spare embryos could be funded, researchers from the Jones Institute in Virginia announced they had created embryos for the express purpose of obtaining stem cells from them.

Using sperm and eggs from paid donors, they created 110 fertilised eggs, yet the scientists successfully isolated and cultured cells from only three of them. Even

for those who do not accept that embryos are human life at a very early stage, it seems extraordinarily wasteful.

Advocates of embryonic stem cell research do not want to admit the possibility of the humanity of what they are destroying because it would block further research. Yet surely this is one of those cases where, if there is substantial debate about the nature of these embryos, we should err on the side of caution?

All our ideas of law, of society, of civilisation are built on the notion that it is not size or strength or the ability to defend yourself which matters, but that the weak and vulnerable must be as protected as the strong.

It seems odd to say that we can find these stem cells, these miraculous building blocks of human life, in something which is not human, or at least not human enough to deserve protection. Or are we removing that protection simply because they are worth more to us dead than alive? If so, our dream of medical advances smacks less of Final Fantasy than of Final Solution.

bobrien@irish-times.ie