Missouri’s stem-cell debate is shattering old alliances—and forging some unexpected new ones
By David Linzee and Christy Marshall
Stem cells are especially good at dividing. They’re dividing the Republican party, black Christian ministers, even the Washington University School of Medicine faculty. And they’ll divide the entire state in November, when the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative appears on the ballot.
Should it pass, the initiative would amend the state constitution to protect embryonic stem cell research from being outlawed. It would also flash a green light to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a private institution based in Kansas City, to sink more of its $2 billion endowment into research inside the state.
The issue is more emotionally charged than any since abortion, because, like abortion, it forces people to define human life scientifically, distinguish between potential and actual realities and speculate on the future. But abortion lines up its supporters and opponents in relatively straight lines. The prospect of embryonic stem cell research, involving a method called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, has sent that line zigzagging, with even people who label themselves “pro-life” backing SCNT.
The initiative has survived legal challenges and received more than enough petition signatures, and both sides see the vote as a turning point. The pro–stem cell side can point to its lead in opinion polls, and it has backers with deep pockets—but victory won’t be a slam-dunk.
The fate of embryonic stem cell research is not at stake, notes David B. Robertson, professor of political science at the University of Missouri–St. Louis: “This research is potentially helpful and very profitable. It will go on somewhere.” But the vote on the initiative is a crossroads for Missouri. A victory would encourage investment in the state as a life sciences center. A defeat “would embolden the opposition,” Robertson notes, and legislation banning SCNT might be introduced in Jefferson City.
Whatever happens to the ballot initiative, a line in the sand has been drawn, and the fight over it has widened social fault lines and strained old alliances. You find opponents of the initiative where you’d expect to find only supporters—and vice versa.
Robertson points to a deepening fissure in the Republican Party between those who give priority to economic growth and those who want the party to “defend American culture, defined conservatively.” In May, Jim Talent (R-Mo.), running a tight race to retain his Senate seat, finally announced his opposition to the ballot initiative. He had stalled and wiggled around, trying to find a compromise position acceptable to Christian conservatives—a doomed effort, says Robertson, because they brook no compromise on this issue. They have been ardent Republican voters for a generation, and their struggle between them and mainstream Republicans for the soul of the party will be a bitter one. John Danforth, former U.S. senator from Missouri, respected party elder and Episcopal priest, sounded off to the Washington Post in February, predicting, and even welcoming, a break between conservative Christians and what he called “traditional” Republicans over the issue of embryonic stem cell research—which he supports.
One researcher at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center (who prefers anonymity) notes that no one in the hospital willl be able to publicly support the proposed amendment. “If anyone here said they supported the bill, the archbishop would close us down,” the researcher says. “This is a Catholic institution. No one is going to be allowed to support this. If they did, Archbishop [Raymond] Burke would be all over Father Biondi [the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of Glennon’s parent institution, Saint Louis University]. It could not happen here.”
Joseph Muehlenkamp, spokesman for the Saint Louis University School of Medicine, says that embryonic stem cell research is a nonissue there: “Saint Louis University subscribes to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services, and therefore does not engage in somatic cell nuclear transfer research.” In 2003, the university caught flak from a conservative Catholic group simply for asking Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan, whose views include support for SCNT, to speak at commencement.
SLU’s position places its physicians at odds with thousands of colleagues who have signed the petition supporting SCNT; with the state university system, as well as medical leaders such as Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities; and with the major associations supporting research on various diseases, from the American Association for Cancer Research to the American Diabetes Association.
Washington University, by contrast, has thrown its full institutional weight behind embryonic stem cell research. Medical faculty and administrators, as well as Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, have spoken out in favor of it. But Dr. Richard A. Chole, head of otolaryngology at the medical school, opposes the research and insists that he is not alone: “I’m not in the majority, but there is a minority. People in many departments have the same views I do. A dozen or so, probably, are willing to state those views publicly. There are many others who do not because it is so unpopular with the administration.”
Chole believes the state should criminalize embryonic research. “Scientists don’t always make the best decisions,” he says. “There are a couple of horrendous examples: irradiating children, infecting children with hepatitis. Although the experiments resulted in useful clinical and scientific information, they were unethical and should never have been done. The development of a human being begins with the formation of the earliest embryo. We as scientists have no right to destroy those early human lives.” The Rev. B.T. Rice, pastor of New Horizon Seventh Day Christian Church, takes the opposite side on the issue, which places him, like Chole, out of step with many colleagues. “They’ve only gotten the negative view,” he says of fellow black clergymen who oppose the ballot initiative, “and I certainly understand. Had I not done the research, I would feel the same way.” SCNT and sexual reproduction are different processes, he says; the first leads to cells for therapeutic uses, the second to a human baby. Harvesting cells, he contends, is not abortion.
There are both ethical and practical reasons for African-Americans to support the research, Rice says. He speaks movingly of ministering to children who suffer from sickle-cell disease. He has struggled long to make it, and other diseases that disproportionately affect African-Americans, a priority for financial supporters of medical research, without much success. “That’s why I’m working feverishly to make sure that churches and pastors are aware of the importance of this in our community,” he says. “If the African-American community supports this effort en masse, really gets behind it in large numbers, I think medical institutions and administrators around the state would be hard pressed not to give consideration to those areas we are mostly interested in, like sickle-cell and diabetes.”
Another widening fissure lies between Catholics and evangelicals, both of whom strongly oppose the initiative, and other religious people. Traditionally, the former two groups have closely identified their faith with comforting the sick. Their teaching has emphasized Jesus’ role in the Gospels as a healer and urged those who suffered illness to pray for a cure. During the 20th century, miracle cures became less the province of religion and more the province of science. Now Catholics and evangelicals are seen by their critics as taking a stand against science, denying hope to the sick and condemning them to suffering.
In its newsletter, The Pathway, the Missouri Baptist Convention refers to the proposed amendment as a “not-so-noble cause.” Speaking at the MBC’s annual meeting last November, the Rev. Rodney Albert, chairman of the MBC Christian Life Commission and pastor of Hallsville Baptist Church, was more strident: “The amendment is more like a convoluted essay, a verbose document meant to confuse Missourians. We are not confused. Missouri Baptists know killing when it’s done to the handicapped. We know killing when it’s done to a baby in the womb, and we know killing when it is done to a human embryo. We will not stand for it.”
But Gov. Matt Blunt, a Southern Baptist, has expressed support—albeit reluctant—for the amendment. In an interview for The Pathway, his endorsement fell short of ringing. “It’s not my initiative,” he says. “I don’t like everything in the initiative. I think the initiative is better than what we’ve got.” Blunt urged Christians to pray thoughtfully about the issue and ended, “I don’t want to become a spokesperson for the initiative in any way.”
A spokeswoman for the governor, Jessica Robinson, veers away from the topic of SCNT to focus on achievements the governor has made in education funding. Asked what happens at the church coffee klatch after services when, say, someone asks what in the name of Jehovah the governor is doing, she says, “There really hasn’t been a backlash, not really. There’s no problem.”
Former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton is Catholic—but a supporter of the stem-cell amendment. “I am a Pope John XXIII and Archbishop John L. May Roman Catholic who voted pro-life while representing Missourians in the U.S. Senate,” he wrote in an op-ed piece for the Southeastern Missourian. “I support this initiative because I believe it would be wrong to turn our back on cures to some of the most terrible diseases and injuries that afflict our fellow humans.”
On March 23, the tension over the amendment showed for a moment in an otherwise polite interfaith dialogue at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Fred Sauer, a Catholic layman, stated that the church’s position is that destroying an embryo is killing a human being. “Christians, bring your faith to the ballot box,” he urged. “Vote for what you think is right.”
“Do you make room for other people’s religious experiences?” challenged Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow. “The state can’t follow religious doctrine. I resent not being able to benefit from this research. Those who would ban it aren’t hearing the voices of people in pain.”
Dr. William Danforth, a physician, the former chancellor of Washington University and a proponent of the initiative, believes that it will win in November: “It’s just hard to imagine we would turn our backs on the opportunity to improve health care. In the long run, we try to do our best for our fellow human beings ... We are on the side of the angels.”
But if you ask his colleagues, there are angels all over the place.
