No one can look into the crystal ball and say exactly where stem cell research is headed. We can’t speak with certainty about the future of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, nor can we speak with certainty about adult stem cell (ASC) research.

Advocates of ESC research have made an art out of over-hyping their message, preying on the vulnerabilities and desires of desperate patients and their families, assuring them that cures are just around the corner for everything from Parkinson’s disease, to diabetes, to spinal cord injuries. But hype has not been lacking amongst advocates of ASC research. Note a cogent observation, for instance, from Westchester Institute Senior Fellow, Dr. Markus Grompe, in an editorial he recently published in the journal Nature:

The pro-ES cell side has accused their opponents of being anti-science, but at the same time has been guilty of public campaigns that have twisted scientific fact in sometimes grotesque ways. Examples include the advertisements for Proposition 71 in California or for the pro-cloning Amendment 2 in Missouri… On the other side, anti-ESC proponents continue to insist that adult stem cells can do everything ES cells can do and there is no valid scientific/medical reason to pursue ES research. Another frequently repeated mantra is something along the lines of "adult stem cells have cured over 70 diseases, whereas no one has been cured by embryonic stem cells". The anti-ES cell faction conveniently omits mention that the vast majority of those 70 diseases are blood-related, and that ongoing research with adult stem cells is in many cases as tenuous and speculative as research on ES cells.

I have to confess that, opposed as I am to embryo-destructive research, and as enthusiastic as I am about inroads in ASC research, I have never found hyping the case for ASC research to be at all helpful. Here’s why.

I concluded my most recent column with the comment that biotechnology and biomedical research are the engines behind an ever more pervasive exploitation of embryonic human life, and that the pro-life community would have to creatively engage a culture which by and large has already embraced embryo-based biomedical research and treatment (as discussed here, here, and here).

I firmly believe that simply promoting the tremendous achievements of adult stem cell research is an inadequate tactic for stemming the growth and popular acceptance of embryo destructive research. Certainly, this is not to minimize the importance of adult stem cell research, which, unlike ESC research, has demonstrated therapeutic benefits to human patients. But this simply cannot be our only answer to the constant push for embryo-destructive research.

Advocates of ASC have long touted the therapeutic potential of adult stem cells—as if this sole assertion, if repeated often enough, would suffice to get everyone off the topic of embryonic stem cell research. In my opinion, such a stance is wildly off the mark and out of touch with where this broad field currently finds itself. Getting real about the future of stem cell research means, first of all, to acknowledge that ESC research is not simply about cures. As Dr. Robert George and I stated in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last March:

Most scientists acknowledge that ESCs will not provide therapies for many years – if ever. Their therapeutic potential is, at best, speculative. They cannot be used now – even in clinical trials – because of their tendency to produce tumors. So it comes as no surprise that many scientists now admit that their primary interest in pursuing ESC research lies not in the hope for direct cell transplant therapies, but in the desire to enhance basic scientific knowledge of such things as cell signaling, tissue growth and early human development.

To respond to this reality by turning a blind eye, and continuing to insist that ASC-derived therapies will one day render moot any interest in ESC research is, quite frankly, to live in a dream world. Unless opponents of embryo-destructive stem cell research promote and pursue ethically acceptable alternatives to embryo-destructive research, alternatives that are both embryo-friendly and scientifically viable, then we will soon find ourselves utterly and ineffectually disengaged from the real debate.

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