Clarkson Integrator - Features Issue: 01/19/04
Senator Orrin Hatch aborts views to support stem cell research
By Knight Ridder Tribune
It was 5:00 a.m. in Utah, and Senator Orrin Hatch already was huffing and puffing on his exercise machine when he grabbed a nearby phone.
"Bruce, get your Bible!" he commanded an aide in Washington. "I'm thinking about when life begins."
The predawn call one Saturday last February (2002) was part of a difficult, yearlong journey by a man torn between his longstanding opposition to abortion and his deep faith in science. Hatch read the scriptures; he prayed; he talked to religious leaders, scientists, bioethicists. He struggled with himself.
Then he sided with science.
Hatch, a Republican, is the only member of Congress who opposes abortion rights but publicly supports the use of human embryos, including cloned embryos, for research. He is co-sponsoring a bill, to be introduced Wednesday, that would permit scientists to create human embryos and destroy them after a few days as they remove the tiny stem cells that researchers believe hold cures for some of humanity's most horrible diseases.
Hatch is at odds with an anti-abortion movement that he has stood with for decades, and also with many voters in his conservative home state who view embryos as human beings and their destruction as murder.
"I don't know anybody else in Congress who thinks that because you are cloned you're not a human," said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "And I don't know anybody else who says because you haven't been implanted in a woman's womb, you don't have a soul."
Leaders on both sides of the debate say they expect that many members of Congress soon will have to wrestle with the same question Hatch confronted, that of when life begins, as they weigh two competing bills on cloning.
Legislation sponsored by Hatch and four abortion-rights supporters from both parties would ban cloning to create human beings, called "reproductive cloning," but would allow cloning embryos for research, dubbed "therapeutic cloning." Hatch prefers the term "regenerative medicine."
Another bill, introduced last week by Senators Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, would prohibit both kinds of cloning. A similar measure passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives overwhelmingly in 2001 and is expected to do so again.
The issue, with its scientific, religious and ethical repercussions, always has been sensitive. But this year, after at least one group claimed without proof to have cloned a baby, tensions already have heightened.
Initially, Hatch assumed that he would stick with his anti-abortion colleagues, who oppose destroying human embryos, both those left over from fertility treatments and those cloned for research, to harvest stem cells. A devout Mormon, he said, "I can't be for something that destroys human life."
Yet Hatch also was a leader on health issues in Congress, and a strong supporter of new types of research. And he was touched by the many victims, people with Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, some forms of cancer and also by a particular little boy, named Cody Anderson, with juvenile diabetes, who hope that stem-cell research would help them overcome their maladies.
So Hatch set out to determine for himself when life began. He searched his soul for an answer, and ultimately decided that it was not at the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, as many abortion opponents believe.
"I came to the conclusion that, yes, the fertilized egg is a living human cell, but it has absolutely zero chance of becoming a living human being unless it is implanted in a womb," Hatch said.
A former medical-liability defense attorney, Hatch has aligned himself with a loose coalition of scientists, disease victims and their families. They are pitted against abortion opponents, the Roman Catholic Church and some environmentalists. The Mormon Church, which opposes abortion rights in most cases, has not taken a position on stem-cell research or therapeutic cloning.
Opponents of research cloning say there is no evidence that embryonic stem cells hold the key to cures. They put their faith in stem cells taken from adults, which also are being used in research. Hatch and others on his side say the adult cells hold less promise than embryonic stem cells.
Last year on his exercise machine, Hatch's breathing grew heavier as Artim continued his bible research.
Now, nearly 12 months later, the senator breathes easier.
"It was difficult arriving at the point at which I could make a decision," he said. "But once I got there, it was easy."