Sen. Bill Frist statement on stem cells

Since 2001 when stem cell research first captured our nation’s attention, I’ve said many times the issue will have to be reviewed on an ongoing basis -- and not just because the science holds tremendous promise, or because it’s developing with breathtaking speed. Indeed, stem cell research presents the first major moral and ethical challenge to biomedical research in the 21st century.

In this age of unprecedented discovery, challenges that arise from the nexus of advancing science and ethical considerations will come with increasing frequency. How can they not? Every day we unlock more of the mysteries of human life and more ways to promote and enhance our health. This compels profound questions -- moral questions that we understandably struggle with both as individuals and as a body politic.

How we answer these questions today -- and whether, in the end, we get them right -- impacts the promise not only of current research, but of future research, as well. It will define us as a civilized and ethical society forever in the eyes of history. We are, after all, laying the foundation of an age in human history that will touch our individual lives far more intimately than the Information Age and even the Industrial Age before it.

Answering fundamental questions about human life is seldom easy. For example, to realize the promise of my own field of heart transplantation and at the same time address moral concerns introduced by new science, we had to ask the question: How do we define “death?” With time, careful thought, and a lot of courage from people who believed in the promise of transplant medicine, but also understood the absolute necessity for a proper ethical framework, we answered that question, allowed the science to advance, and have since saved tens of thousands of lives.

So when I remove the human heart from someone who is brain dead, and I place it in the chest of someone whose heart is failing to give them new life, I do so within an ethical construct that honors dignity of life and respect for the individual.

Like transplantation, if we can answer the moral and ethical questions about stem cell research, I believe we will have the opportunity to save many lives and make countless other lives more fulfilling. That’s why we must get our stem cell policy right -- scientifically and ethically. And that’s why I stand on the floor of the United States Senate today.

Four years ago, I came to this floor and laid out a comprehensive proposal to promote stem cell research within a thorough framework of ethics. I proposed 10 specific interdependent principles. They dealt with all types of stem cell research, including adult and embryonic stem cells.

As we know, adult stem cell research is not controversial on ethical grounds -- while embryonic stem cell research is. Right now, to derive embryonic stem cells, an embryo -- which many, including myself, consider nascent human life -- must be destroyed. But I also strongly believe -- as do countless other scientists, clinicians, and doctors -- that embryonic stem cells uniquely hold specific promise for some therapies and potential cures that adult stem cells cannot provide.

I’ll come back to that later. Right now, though, let me say this: I believe today -- as I believed and stated in 2001, prior to the establishment of current policy -- that the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research. And as I said four years ago, we should federally fund research only on embryonic stem cells derived from blastocysts leftover from fertility therapy, which will not be implanted or adopted but instead are otherwise destined by the parents with absolute certainty to be discarded and destroyed.

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