Washington National Cathedral

Lloyd: Good morning and welcome as we continue our week-by-week exploration of the engagement between faith and the public issues and questions of our day. Today we are exploring one of the big complex issues of our time, one that has been in the midst of a great deal of debate, and today we hope we can have some light shed on it for all of us. We are talking of course about faith and bioethics, specifically the heated debate around the use of stem cells and for this we are welcoming film maker Maria Finitzo, director of the documentary “Mapping Stem Cell Research, Terra Incognita.” And we are also happy to welcome Cynthia Cohen, a neighbor and a member of St. Albans Parrish next door who is a senior research fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University and author a very helpful book called Renewing the Stuff of Life, Stem Cells, Ethics, and Public Policy. Maria and Cynthia, it is great to have you here.

Let’s talk Maria with you; you have spent two years making this film. There are a lot of interesting things you could do films about, how did you land on stems cells for your focus?

Finitzo: Well, as a documentary filmmaker, one of the ways I learn about the world is through making a film about them, and at the time I had finished another film on adolescent girls and I was sort of searching around for my next topic and stem cell research was in the news all the time. And usually when that happens it is as if someone is saying, “this is a good idea for a film.” I would read all of the article and read everything about it and in my own mind had a hard time figuring out where it all fell out and so that was when I thought, “well, this would be a great topic to make a film about and to find a story which would help not only myself, but other people kind of get into the whole issue and understand it in a way that could be presented more than the way the traditional media was presenting the idea.” So that is why I started the film.

Lloyd: You seem to also—judging from watching the film— have a real interest in the process of scientific exploration as well.

Finitzo: For a long time, I had been interested in making a film about what it takes to do science on a daily basis. A lot of us who are not scientists think that you come up with a hypothesis, you go into your lab and within a year or a couple of months you figure it out. And that is not really what happens: it is sort of a daily process that takes years and years to do. And because stem cell research provided a great way of thinking about what it means in our country to do science in a democratic society… So this was a highly controversial subject: what is the responsibility of scientists when they are this research to the public and I thought that this would be a great way of exploring all of that as well.

Lloyd: You had a chance to look at the whole debate going on, what did you learn about how we as a country engage complex scientific and moral questions like this?

Finitzo: I think that what I learned is that the media does not do a particularly good job, in my opinion, of presenting the issue with all of the nuances. It usually presents it from both polarized sides and that is where the debate sits—from one side or the other. When I made this film and spent a lot of time talking to scientists and people doing this research even before we got started, their (not complaint if you will, but) their thoughts were that there was an entire landscape of issues out there that were not covered by the media and so the public did not really get a chance to fully understand what it meant for our society to talk about, “should we or should we not do stem cell research?” That was most enlightening to me. I mean the media focuses on the moral status of the embryo but there are all kinds of other social justice issues around whether or not stem cell research should go forward and how it should go forward, that was not being addressed.

Lloyd: Well your documentary was recently shown on PBS, we showed here yesterday, is it getting attention, are the press picking up some of this?

Finitzo: The film before it was shown on PBS our broadcaster, Independent Lens, had about 60 community screenings across the country at different locations and it was also shown in the film festivals and they then have on their web site what they call “talk back” and so people can come online and say what they thought about the film and a lot of what is happening is that people are not really talking so much about the film per se as they are the issue so that was really great.

Lloyd: Part of the challenge I think with stem cell discussions is for everyone to have some clear sense of what the debate is really about. I know that often people hear the headlines and then back away because it quickly gets into some complex science so Cynthia, I would like to put you on the spot for a minute for a very brief stem cell primer. What is a stem cell and what is it that is so controversial about it?

Cohen: Sure, there are several different kinds of stem cell. Adult stem cells are cell that are in your body working at this very moment. They have two different functions, one is that they can duplicate themselves and the second is that can become specialized. They are not specialized in themselves but they are at this very moment producing more skin cells in you, more retinal cells, et cetera. They are also found in older fetuses. There are fetal stem cells. They are not being explored very much though because they have a very narrow range of cells into which they can differentiate. So the other major kind of stem cells are embryonic stem cells which of course have been the most controversial ones. These are found in the inner cell mass of the embryo at about, oh, four to five days after fertilization and we know a lot more about them because of in-vitro fertilization. We studied them in glass laboratory dishes so that they are not implanted in a woman’s body but of course the controversy is, should we be using these embryos because to get the inner cell mass out with the stem cells or from which we are going to develop the stem cells means that the embryo is destroyed. So the question is, “is it wrong to destroy embryos at four to five days after fertilization?”

Lloyd: Where do these embryos come from that the scientists are using?

Cohen: They are by in large are the result of in-vitro fertilization. When you go through IVF you are asked to provide as many eggs as possible. So a woman is hyper-stimulated, and then these are fertilized in a glass dish and you usually get more embryos than you can use in one IVF cycle, so some of the extra embryos may be frozen. Some of the fresh embryos may not be wanted for future use because they are damaged or for various reasons but they try to produce as many as they can at one time, because it is very difficult for a woman to go through this procedure producing eggs. It is a little dangerous. It is a little uncomfortable and painful, so you try to avoid doing it multiple times and you try to save extra embryos. So there are these extra embryos that are in freezers around the country. At last count there is close to 500 thousand of them and they are just sitting there. President Bush is trying to encourage people to adopt them and use them, but with a half-million embryos it is not likely that they are going to be adopted.

Lloyd: And what is it that these stem cells can do? Why does seem to scientists that there is potential gold mine of possibilities in these stem cells?

Cohen: For all of these stem cells, the hope is that they can transplant them into sick people—say somewhat with Parkinson’s disease could have neural stem cells transplanted into his or her brain and help the brain cells regenerate those that are damaged or shrinking. Also, they are hoping to be able to use them to test drugs. So if a Parkinson’s patient, for instance, provided some cells—and we could even delineate different neural stem cells from the original basic stem cells—we could try different drugs out on those that are affected by Parkinson’s disease and see if it works so that you would not be putting humans at risk in such drug testing. Also with regard to embryonic stem cells, they want to learn how embryos grow and develop, and there is very little research that has been done on this and it is a very important topic.

Lloyd: It seems to be in things like looking at your film from something like spinal injury. There is a hope that these embryonic cells can eventually be used maybe to help spinal tissue re-grow, so that someone who has had a severe injury could actually begin to regain mobility and the use of their limbs again, is that part of the conversation now? I know this is down the way a little bit, maybe a lot…

Cohen: Yes, definitely, heart disease, I have been on a monitoring board at the NIH for these adult stem cells for people who suffered heart attacks so that there are a variety of ways, enormous ways, in which this could be used in the future. But of course, the problem is getting stem cells to people that match them and if they select embryos from strangers they do not match, so they are trying to develop huge banks of stem cells and then they will be able, hopefully, like they do with blood banks to have enough on hand to match anybody why might need them.

Lloyd: Maria tell us a little bit about your hero in your film Jack Kessler, what he faced and his driving passion because of this one instance of what Cynthia is talking about.

Finitzo: The film that I made is the story about the head of neurology at Northwestern University and his name is Dr. Jack Kessler. He had been a neurologist for years and had been looking at how embryonic stem cells might help solve some of the neurologic problems that people with diabetes have. After he had come to Chicago, his daughter—who was then 15-years-old and was still in school back east— fell [while] skiing. She was not doing anything extraordinary, just sort of messing around skiing, and broke her spinal column and was paralyzed from the waist down and the night that he flew to her side he decided that he was going to change the focus of his entire lab and look for a cure for spinal cord injury. I came into his story four years later. His daughter was now a sophomore in college. He was at Northwestern and he had totally refocused his laboratory and was at the beginning of starting a set of experiments which he had designed for the last couple of years to see if he could tackle the problem of spinal cord regeneration. One of the interesting things he says in the film is that it took him two years to come up with an approach because he realized that it was not going to do any good to do what all the other labs in the country were doing…That the way science moves forward is that everybody comes up creatively with possibly a different approach, and then you hope that you are all putting pieces of a puzzle together to come up with a solution.

Lloyd: And so what we see developing and Cindy I would love to get your response to this because it is so much of what your book is about, is a way of two competing sets of moral concerns. One is protecting the sanctity or certainly respecting the embryo, and a whole set of moral questions about what can and should be done with an embryo. Then on the other side at least a lot of scientists are imagining an enormous amount of potential for easing illness such as Parkinson’s disease and may be for some cures possibly addressing Alzheimer’s, certainly addressing spinal injury and heart attacks so it is a sense of the possibility of something very creative happening, but these real moral questions linger about the embryo. Tell us something about the debate that is happening about that.

Cohen: I thought that the film did a really good job of just briefly talking about what some of the major religious views are. Within Christianity there are two main groups: one group maintains that the embryo is an individual human being from the very moment of fertilization, and this seems like common sense to them and to a lot secular people too. They say, “Look we all were once embryos and it is obvious that embryos grow into full fledged human beings. How can you not see that?” And the people who respond tend to look at it from the other direction: they tend to look at what happens to embryos at the beginning and how they develop, rather than starting out with human beings and looking back. They say that the embryo does not really become an individual entity until approximately 14 days after fertilization. This is because it does not yet have differentiated cells. It does not have a spinal cord. It is not on the way to developing organs. It has no neural system, no brain system working. Moreover, until 14 days the embryo can split and become twins, triplets, et cetera, and so their argument is, “It is not an individual at that point. It becomes an individual when twinning is no longer possible at about 14 days.” There is a tradition within Christianity that gives some support to that second view. The early Christian theologians distinguished between what they called the formed and unformed embryo. The formed embryo was the embryo after about 40 days after fertilization. The unformed embryo existed before that and they maintained—based on a text from Exodus—that the unformed embryo was not yet a living individual human being, and therefore it was not right to destroy it because they thought that the product of procreation should be protected, but it was not yet an individual. So it was sort of a lesser sin to do something to it because it interfered with procreation. But it was considered equivalent to homicide to do something with the later embryo, and of course then we are talking about ‘fetus’ there. Today people try to distinguish between the abortion debate and the debate about embryos, because the abortion debate is about a much later fetus. It is in a woman’s body, and so obviously there is a conflict there between the woman’s health perhaps—or whatever is at issue—and the fetus when abortion is the subject of concern. The embryos that we are talking about are outside the human body so the abortion debate is not really on point and conservative theologians acknowledge that we are talking about a somewhat different issue.

Lloyd: But it does become in many ways a heartwrenching debate as we will hear Nancy Reagan or Jack Kessler or his colleague whose daughter was also severely injured, people who desperately want to improve and ease the lives of people they care profoundly about and even argue that it is a social justice issue: “How can you stop us from trying to mitigate and help people’s lives,” against a real commitment to try to make sure that we aren’t starting down a path of diminishing the sanctity of human life? It is a pretty tricky debate. What did you see as you filmed and watched that debate go on?

Finitzo: Well I think mostly my perspective was looking at the Jack Kessler’s perspective as a doctor and you know his whole motivation in life is to alleviate suffering, to cure illness. You kind of saw his drive for that and that is hard to argue against. One of the things that I found that was most interesting when I made this film was you Jack’s daughter, Allison, and then there was another young woman in the film who suffered a much more devastating spinal cord injury, a high neck injury. She was essentially paralyzed from here down and when we talk about stem cell research with both of them their viewpoint was, “I am living my life now—today—in this wheelchair, and I cannot really think about embryonic stem cell research and that it might allow me to get up and walk out of this chair because hope is a hard thing to live when you have to live with the reality of your life.” I thought that was sort of a profound way of even addressing what this research means to the people who are kind of waiting for a cure. You have to live your life on a day-to-day basis. And Carrie said (she is the young woman with the high neck injury), “you know, when I think about embryonic stem cell research and what it might do, it makes it hard for me to be content in my chair.” That was one of the most sort of profound moments for me in that I was like, “oh!, of course you have to get up the next morning and how are you going to do that.”

Cohen: I think that one of the frustrating things is that this research is not proceeding as fast as it could and—

Lloyd: Because of government constraints.

Cohen: …well the problem is that the federal government is not funding embryonic stem cell research. They are funding adult stem cell research and that is somewhat promising, but it is limited just to certain areas of the human body. It doesn’t have the total impact that embryonic stem cell research does.

Lloyd: Just to keep my brain clear on this, the reason that adult stem cells aren’t as effective is that they are not as flexible as embryonic stem cells are to grow into all different kinds of cells.

Cohen: They are much more difficult to get. They are rare. They are difficult to process so it takes a longer period of time to develop them. But what has happened is that states now are developing stem cell research programs, and so there is a balance that has to be struck between raising false hopes in people. It would be even more tragic to have people in wheelchairs hope that tomorrow they are going to be cured, when it is just not going to happen. It is probably going to be another 5 to 10 years before we see results, and we are hopeful that the state funding will bring about a greater use of embryonic stem cells, and those who believe that it is morally wrong to do so would not be forced to received those stem cells and would have the option of perhaps using these new cells, “induced pluripotent stem cells,” if you want a really fancy term. You may have heard about this recently that they are able to get cells from skin cells by de-differentiating these cells back down to a stage where they are more like blank slates again. They are not embryos but they are like embryonic stem cells, and they are hopeful that as they develop this, they may be able to come forward with some treatment without having to use embryos.

Lloyd: Some hope of that could almost bypass the loggerheads we are at now that if they can actually find a way to have something like embryonic stem cells but do not come from embryos themselves. Is there hope that can actually happen?

Cohen: I think so; it is very promising. They have not really characterized all of the features of these new IPS cells but they are very hopeful that they will function in the same way that embryonic stem cells do. Until they are sure of that though, they still need embryonic stem cells in order to do the comparison purposes and in order to proceed with research on various therapies.

Lloyd: Before we go to questions from our audience Cynthia if you would, at the end of your book you make your own policy recommendations and what you would like to see, describe what other countries are doing in relation to this and then what you would like to see us do in the United States. What you would like to see us doing that we are not doing in the area of stem cell research?

Cohen: Even under the current situation there is very little ethical oversight of the derivation and use of embryonic stem cells. This is because there is no federal funding for this kind of research. So individual labs have been working on their own; states have been developing their own ethical guidelines. The national academies have come out with some guidelines which are very helpful but I think do not go far enough, and I think that we need a national review board. If things change in the next election, the three most prominent candidates in both parties have all said that they would go ahead with federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, in which case they are definitely going to need a national review board of some kind and this would be a board where people would have input into what is being decided. They would travel around the country holding forums and develop standards for stem cell research.

Lloyd: Certainly there are areas that very obviously need that. There is talk about the capacity for even human cloning and you talk about it in your book, and something that I found particularly fascinating and frightening was the discussion of chimeras. Tell us something about chimera research, which is also an argument for very close ethical governmental oversight.

Cohen: You may have seen some articles in the papers talking about human/non-human chimeras, and you will see a picture of a creature that has the head of lion, body of a goat and the tail of a snake and this was featured in Greek mythology a long time ago. It was a symbol of evil. There is the possibility today of taking stem cells, neural stem cells, inserting them into a living human being, prenatal human beings, even very early embryonic non-human beings, and perhaps developing a creature that is half human and half non-human, so people have depicted say a mouse with a human brain if the mouse was the non-human receiving these stem cells at the embryonic stage. Of this has been very controversial, so the national academies asked me to come and talk to them about, ‘where do we set limits to putting human stem cells into animals.’ And we agreed that you should not put neural stem cells that could develop into brain stem cells into non-humans at the prenatal stages. There is very little likelihood that a mouse would emerge with a human brainm but when you get to primates and get to chimpanzees that in many respects are similar to humans in they way their bodies function, it is of some concern that if you were to put neural brain cells into them as embryos, because you might very well get a chimpanzee with a human brain and might think and act like a human in certain respects. The concern too is that you might do something to the gametes of non-humans—the sperm, or eggs of primates—and might enable primates to produce these gametes and if one primate with sperm that were human met a female primate with human eggs and they fell in love and mated, they could give birth to a human being. So it is all very scary and so we have established certain limits as to how this research should go because you do need to test these stem cells in non-humans first. We generally do this in research use animals subjects first before we test them in human beings, for safety sake.

Lloyd: Maria you were about to say something before I brought up this dreadful subject.

Finitzo: Well one of the things that I learned while I was doing this film was the role that the NIH plays in scientific research. I think that the misconception on a lot of peoples’ part was that if the NIH did not support embryonic stem cell research or they supported it only in a limited way, that it would not move forward in other venues. But in fact, what happens is that it gets pushed into the private sector, where as Cynthia was saying, there is not a lot of oversight and so you see that happening. Companies start to do it themselves and the states started having their own funding. But for instance in California, when they passed the three billion dollar initiative—I think that is what it was—they had to then essentially set up what was their own NIH in California, to figure out how all of this money was going to be dispensed. I think that the role of the NIH is huge in being the engine that drives scientific research.

Cohen: They are certainly important for basic research, which often in this country doesn’t get funded in other ways but by private groups. NIN stands for National Institutes of Health which you all probably know since is very near us here and so that has been of concern because the basic research needs to be done somehow if we are going to prove whether this works or not. And as Maria says, it has moved into the private sector and the states.

Lloyd: Let’s go to our audience.

Deryl Davis: I am going to be down here in front, if people wouldn’t mind coming over to where I am to the microphone.

Question #1: You made a distinction between embryonic stem cell research and the abortion issue but it seems to me that if I am a woman and I produce eggs in the process of doing in-vitro fertilization and I have eggs left over fertilized or unfertilized then they are mine and I have some ownership and I should have some choice about what happens to them and if want them to be used in embryonic stem cell research, I should be permitted to do that just as I am permitted to donate my organs when I die. So it seems to me that organ donation, abortion, and embryonic stem cell research are connected and I wish you would talk about that some.

Cohen: Yeah that is an interesting point. The point I was trying to make is that in abortion what is at issue is a conflict between the woman and the fetus. The fetus in inside the woman’s body and so that is why some people try to balance out what to do in that situation and whether to try to save the woman and permit an abortion or whether to give priority to the fetus. You do not have that kind of conflict here because the eggs are outside of your body at the point where they have been induced to form an embryo, so that your physical wellbeing is not at issue but certainly you do have the right to determine what should be done with these embryos that are remaining and no embryo should ever be obtained without the consent of the two people who are involved in the development of these embryos, the male and the female. So I think that your point is well taken. I have been on the Canadian Stem Cell Oversight Committee and frankly the guidelines that we have developed are much more stringent than the guidelines here in the States so that they are very sure to protect your privacy if you donate embryos. They are very sure that you give consent that it is not weedled out of you by your reproductive specialist who may feel that he would like some embryos for his research colleagues and you may fee obliged to go along with him because you are really desparate to have children and do not want to get on the bad side of that person. So a lot of issues are raised by the consent issue but it is important.

Question #2: Hi, I attended yesterday’s movie with the Northwestern doctor portrayed and I have been in Washington for 17 years and I have always found almost every issue is driven by least common denominator, lack of knowledge of the vast majority of the public. I have also read Michael Crichton’s novel “Next,” which makes a strong case for issues like monkeys having human characteristics that you spoke to and those issues facing us right now. That having been said, why is it so hard to get across through the media that embryonic stem cells are only available in the third to fifth day after fertilization, and from what you are saying nine days before there is any individualization, I mean if that was made clear to the vast majority of the public, I think that the intensity of the debate would shrink and, at least on a scientific basis maybe have the Catholic Church and the soul debate, but three to five days was a very powerful fact that I had not seen in other reports or read in another reports on stem cell research.

Finitzo: I have read some pretty good articles where they do say that these cell exist at three to five days and then they disappear so I think that the problem with the media in my opinion tends to be more the way they write stories, as they write them in ways that are sort of polarized. That is one of the reasons as film makers of documentary films is that we make films, because we come at an issue hopefully from a way that does not polarize the issue but rather tries to layout the whole landscape. And you know think that is just sort of what happens as it is either them or us and that is the way it gets reported. I think that this is a an issue that is not easily solved because it speaks very deeply to some peoples’ faith and I think that they can’t let go of what they believe in.

Lloyd: Let’s dig into that for a minute. I want to use a couple of questions that have come in off of the web—a number of them came in this morning. One we might say on the more conservative side, and one you might say on the more liberal side, before going ahead. [First, a] question from Valerie in Falls Church: “I would like to know how to respond to those political religious conservatives who do not want fertilized embryos used for medical research, but seem to be fine with having them destroyed if they are not implanted. Is there a faith based rationale that can be given?”

Cohen: That is a difficult question to answer. I think that people who are conservative are not advocating the destruction of those embryos as I mentioned President Bush would love it if people would adopt these embryos and what they are saying is we do not think that public funds should be used to destroy embryos. If someone else is going to destroy them we have no control over that but do not use my tax money to do that. So I think that Valerie’s question is well taken and yet the people who would answer it would say, “we certainly do not favor the destruction of human embryos.”

Lloyd: One more final question from Lauren in Los Angeles: “as Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead, is it right or wrong for science to do the same thing, and what about the possibility that manipulation of God’s creation may one day sacrifice one form of life to save another?

Finitzo: Well, in the film there is a moment when the young woman who breaks her neck comes to visit Jack’s lab and she is learning all about embryonic stem cell research and Jack is showing her mouse embryonic stem cells, and you see her look into the microscope to look at these cells and then you hear the voice of the ethcist in my film Lori Zoloft say, “If you could heal a spinal cord injury why wouldn’t you want to do that?” She then goes into a lovely discussion about the role of suffering in our lives and the different religious faiths and their view of suffering. And of course in Catholicism, my understanding is that suffering is central to being human and it is what makes us human. But from Jack’s perspective—and from the perspective of other religious traditions—suffering is not what makes us human, [rather] it is our yearning and desire to alleviate suffering that makes us human. That has always been sort of a favorite part of the film for me because I think that sort of lays out what is at stake here. What does it mean for us to suffer? Is it a path we can’t get off of or are we supposed to try and heal suffering?

Cohen: I know Lori very well. She comes from the Jewish tradition, and they are very strong on the notion of healing and that it is our calling in life to alleviate suffering, to help those who are ill or suffering in other ways, to heal. Also in their tradition the human embryo is like water until 40 days after fertilization so they don’t have the kind of issue that some more conservative people have with the use of early embryos and stem cells research. I agree that was a very powerful part of the film.

Question #3: It seems like there is sort of a metaphysical piece to this picture and I think that my question is, at what point do we become image-bearers of God if that is part of our Christian belief and it seems that has bearing on the issue of abortion; it has a bearing on stem cell research and it also has a bearing on end of life issues. If I am lying in the bed and I am brain dead, am I still an image-bearer? If we think that we become an image-bearer at the moment of fertilization or do we become an image-bearer at the time that an embryo or a fetus could live outside of the mother so it seems like that may be part of the question that we need to look on ahead for meanings and I was may pointing to you Dean.

Cohen: That is a terrific question. I hope you will read my book. (Laughter) There is a chapter in it in which I talk about the various religious traditions and go through some of the scriptural texts that have been very important to people who take differing positions on the moral significance of the early human embryo. The notion of ‘the image of God’ is very powerful, but when Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, they were created as full fledged adults. They weren’t created as even as babies or embryos, so the notion that at creation we immediately receive the image of God requires some interpretation and some thought. What do we mean by the image of God? We don’t literally mean a likeness of God, but perhaps certain ways of being present in the world, certain ways of being aware of things but it is a fascinating question that has deep theological significance.

Question #4: The words seem to have such power, “human embryo” implies “individual” and you have made it very clear the 14 and 40-day mark and that seems to really inflame the debate or drive the debate from what I have heard from you two today, it is clear to me that we can discuss when the soul or the image of God is implanted as a religious question but the biology and the science are clear that there is not an individual present on the microscope at three to five days or 14 days. How can that clarity be gotten through to the media to the citizens, co-owners of government making these decisions.

Cohen: Let me say that there have been some scientific findings that suggest—and this is a big debate today—any embryologists around? (laughter) When you look at the embryo and they are learning more and more about the embryo, they are debating whether it has a north/south pole. If it has an axis, people who are conservative will say if it has this axis at day 1 it is a distinct individual and it is already developing its own individuality and then others, Davor Solter, who is in Munich, Germany at a very well regarded institute has done studies that show no, there is not a polar axis in the early embryo, and it does not develop until somewhat later. So there are scientific arguments about this and it is not just religious arguments and it is not just secular arguments and until we get some of the science figured out… I mean, our religious arguments only are going to be able to bear weight if we take to account what the science is saying. I mean, if religions come up with views of the human embryo that are totally wacky and have nothing to do with what scientists are finding, I think that we are in deep trouble.

Lloyd: Question coming from Ed in Hillsboro. I do not know where Hillsboro is but Hillsboro. “We have always been able to manufacture—that is, take existing elements and make them work for us. With a successful mapping of the human genome combined with advanced technologies which enable us to manipulate elements at the atomic level, are we now tempted to think that we can create? There is a vast world of difference between manufacturing and creating.” You all have been living on the edges of creating new life, is there a temptation there for us to step too far and become creators ourselves.”

Finitzo: Well I can sort of speak from Jack Kessler’s perspective, but one of the things he said and he said over and over again during the course of making this film is that he knows no credible scientist who has a desire to clone a human being or make a human being and that is sort of where the line should be drawn. You know we are always going to hear about people… We heard about that sect that had supposedly created a human being and I think that have to have faith in human beings who are motivated to do this research for good reasons and I do not think that there are any sort of credible scientists out there who are trying to do that.

Cohen: There is also the question about how far we should go with our technology that is built into the question you were reading. The theory is to use stems cells to sort of spread them out on a scaffolding and say develop a human organ, a kidney, in the future you know this is a dream, that is not anywhere near to be done but if you can develop a kidney from scratch, so to speak, could you develop a spinal cord from scratch, brain, could you put them altogether use your skin stem cells and create human being from scratch using stem cells and genetic information (which the questioner brought in) and if so should we do that, would it be wrong for us to do that, would it represent a form of creation and are we prohibited from creating other human beings in that way. It is a very touchy, interesting and fascinating question.

Lloyd: As in so many areas the question is our scientific knowledge outstripping our moral categories and our moral capacity to handle them and you all are right out there trying to help us do that now.

Question #5: I have a question about the half million embryos that currently exist in the frozen state, I believe. What is the plan? Is it the plan to keep them indefinitely in that state or is there like a shelf life? Does their vitality go down over time? Hany studies been done on that?

Cohen: Right now in the United States physicians— reproductive specialists—do not know what to do with all of the frozen embryos that they have because some of them are just abandoned by couples. Some have started charging to store these embryos and if a couple were not to pay their bill and they defrosted the embryos and they died would the physician who did that be legally liable? Because they are not his property so they are starting to write into (I am a lawyer as well, I don’t know if that was ever mentioned) contracts conditions under which the embryos will no longer be kept frozen. What they did in the United Kingdom is they passed a regulation saying that after five years unclaimed embryos would no longer be held and they would be abandoned because they just did not have room for all of the embryos that they had in their freezers. When you look at studies of why people leave them there, couples are reluctant to make a final decision in many cases. They sort of think, “well maybe some time in the future we will want another child, so let’s keep that embryo in the freezer, just in case,” and others just sort of don’t want to think about it and they forget about it, so the psychology of this is all very interesting as well. Other people argue, “well, let’s go back to those couples and see if we can use those frozen embryos for research purposes,” and sometimes couples are very willing to do it when they have had enough time to think about it.

Lloyd: This has been a fascinating and very helpful conversation. I hope you will join us next week when we have Brian McLaren with us the man who is leading something called the Emergent Church Movement, which is all part of the Evangelical and main line churches trying to re-invent themselves. [He is] one of the most creative minds on the scene. But for now I hope you will linger for some coffee and conversation in the back of the church and Maria and Cynthia have agreed to linger for some of the conversation as well. Please join me in thanking them for this wonderful conversation. (Applause)