By Don C. Reed
Think of a little plastic dish full of salt water, a Petri dish. And floating in the water are a dozen tiny dots, almost invisible: fertilized human eggs, or blastocysts.
According to a recent decision of the Alabama Supreme Court, these microscopic dots are actual children. (1)
This is personhood, a political re-definition of life itself, and it may have devastating consequences.
To start, it could make it impossible for couples to have a child by the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure. IVF is not an uncommon procedure; in 2021, it accounted for 2.3% of all births in America: 86,146 infants. (2)
Consider the procedure: when a childless couple tries to have a baby by IVF, they first make fertilized eggs ( 10 or 12), and will keep these nearly invisible bits of tissue in a dish of salt water. The healthiest two will be inserted into the woman’s womb: where, it is hoped, one will implant in the uterine wall and become a baby.
Now. After the blastocysts are inserted, what happens to the “left-overs”, the other ten fertilized eggs? If these are real children, can they be frozen and stored for later use? You could not do that with a two-year-old. If a blastocyst is an actual child, could you discard it?
In real life, of course, fertilized eggs are not children. It is biologically impossible for that dot in a dish to become a child, unless it is implanted in the womb.
No womb, no baby; this is not rocket science.
But if the political decision stands, and every fertilized egg is a child?
Would it not criminalize the IVF procedure? If those sperm-egg combinations are children, “left-overs” cannot be disposed of legally. You cannot freeze them, or incinerate them, or add them to the landfill—so what do you do with them?
Also, this new definition of human life would ban Embryonic Stem C ell research (hESC)—because that uses fertilized eggs.
Why would this matter?
My son, Roman Reed, is paralyzed, due to a spinal cord injury incurred in a college football game, 30 years ago. Since then, we have been involved in research which may one day lead to a cure.
Initial funding came from a law named after him, the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act of 1999. A paralyzed rat was given embryonic stem cells—and the rat walked again. (3)
The rat’s name was Fighter, and on March 1, 2002, I held her in my hands. I felt the tiny muscles, struggling to be free. When I set her down, she scampered across the purple plastic swimming pool, which was her play area.
This was opening day of the Roman Reed Laboratory. The late Christopher “Superman” Reeve spoke to us on the phone, saying: “Oh, to be a rat this day!”
I was writing a book at the time, and Christopher gave me a quote I could use, saying: “One day, Roman and I will stand up from our wheelchairs, and walk away from them forever.”
Important: the treatment must be administered as soon as possible after the injury: in the first couple of weeks, called the acute stage. According to my understanding, the longer period of time (chronic) showed no improvement.
But when the therapy was given 5 newly-paralyzed humans?
“Following the treatment, all patients showed significant improvement in their sitting balance, control and sensation of bowel and bladder, power and movement of limbs (lower limbs and upper limbs). No adverse events were reported.” (4)
This had real-life benefits. For example, Jake J. was able to continue on with his college career; Katie S. is currently working for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine.
Their lives are a struggle, but each of the five did receive some improvement, and part of the credit must go to those little cells in a dish: embryonic stem cell therapy.
I am neither scientist nor doctor. But still I have seen enough to know we must not shut ourselves off from these incredibly promising cells.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can be turned into any kind of cell, perhaps to replace missing or damaged cells of the heart or liver. Also, being human tissue, they might be useful to test new drugs.
Might there be a way to “tweak” the procedure, so stem cells could help patients with longer-lasting(chronic) paralysis? I don’t know—but I want the scientists free to find out.
Because no one has the right to deny my son his chance at cure.
1. https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/24/health/alabama-ivf-roe-v-wade
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6724772/
4. https://www.spinalcord.com/blog/first-paralyzed-man-treated-with-stem-cells-has-regained-movement