Stem Cell Debate Resurfaces

From today’s Boston Globe :

The issue of stem cell research, while not at the forefront of this year’s presidential campaign, has surfaced in political advertisements and again during Wednesday’s presidential debate—casting a potentially revolutionary field of scientific research into the political spotlight once again . . . .

Now, scientists say, the field needs national support to take embryonic stem cell research from its promising early stages to the next level—despite development of a different type of stem-like cell—known as iPS cells—that is not from human embryos, and thus not as controversial.

“The idea that a field of science would be subjected to a kind of election politics . . . doesn’t really further the normal trajectory of science,” said Kevin Casey, associate vice president in the Office of Government and Community Affairs at Harvard University.

In the current issue of First Things , Joseph Bottum and Ryan T. Anderson explain that “the history of the stem-cell debate is a study of what happens when politics and science reach out to each other.” Harvard’s Kevin Casey would benefit from reading ” Stem Cells: A Political History .”