Stem Cell Bill Squeaks through Senate Committee
by
Maggie Lee
Georgia Online News Service
The state Senate will soon hear a bill that critics say brands Georgia as an anti-bioscience state and that proponents say protects human life.
Senate Bill 169 would make Georgia laboratories places where "when you fertilize an egg, it's only for treating fertility," according to bill advocate Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome).
This bill would allow adult stem cell research, but not the embryonic type.
The bill was approved 7-6 in a vote of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Monday morning in a version amended by Smith. It guts many of the proposed restrictions regulations on in vitro fertilization, like limiting the number of embryos implanted in each try for a pregnancy.
The vote came the same day that President Obama signed an Executive Order allowing federal funding on embryonic stem cell research.
The cuts are "issues that require careful deliberation" for another time, Smith says. He said he was asked to come up with a passable bill by Thursday.
There are still strong objections based on its import for Georgia bioscience and for IVF parents.
"If this bill passes out of this Committee under objection from the scientific community, we are sending the unmistakable message that Georgia is an anti-science state," according to Sen. David Adelman (D-Decatur).
The University System of Georgia objects to the bill.
It may be bad for bio-business too.
"It will undermine our state governor's efforts to advance our state's economy [by attracting biosciences] in very challenging times," said Dr. Russell Medford, founder of Atlanta pharmaceutical company AtheroGenics and executive member of GeorgiaBio, a life sciences industry group.
Medford calls embryonic stem cell research "one of the most important and promising paths to curing human disease and relieving suffering."
"Make no mistake. This bill as constructed with all the best intentions will end embryonic stem cell research in this state," he says.
For bill opponents, that's the point.
"We are opposed to destructive embryonic stem cell research. I do not believe that Georgia Baptists want the intentional killing of human beings, whether it be embryos or a terminally ill individual," says Gerald Harris, editor of the Southern Baptist Convention publication Christian Index.
The Georgia Catholic Conference goes further; they're opposed to in vitro fertilization, but take a ban on embryonic stem cell research as a positive first step, according to GCC executive director Frank Mulcahy.
Bill author Sen. Ralph Hudgens (R-Hull) tried to assuage the science camp with amended language.
Research can continue with existing embryonic stem cell lines, he notes. And scientists may import new lines from out-of-state. But none can be created here, he clarifies.
And he notes that the new bill recognizes that cryopreservation exists in Georgia – the freezing of human eggs for in vitro fertilization. Hudgins notes that harvesting eggs is expensive and difficult and implanting an embryo often fails, so women should be able to minimize the number of times they undergo harvesting. They should be able to collect extras in a freezer.
But some IVF parents fear they could be made criminals under the bill – because it says in vitro embryos can't be destroyed, and they could become state property.
"If a husband and wife have eight embryos in a freezer and … for any reason cannot have those embryos transferred into her uterus, it is the state's right to give those embryos to whoever a superior court judge decides," says Decatur resident and IVF father Robert Spears.
Smith admits there's no statute that would govern frozen embryos.
"There some complication with defining an embryo as a person and that's one of them," he says.
There's no timeframe yet for full Senate action; the House hasn't heard a similar law.
Maggie Lee specializes in quality of life topics, Atlanta's international communities and general reporting. She covers Georgia economic development and the Chinese community as a stringer for China Daily and chronicles life in Georgia's most diverse county for the DeKalb Champion. [full bio]
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