In October, the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine hosted a major symposium on “Human Embryo Experimentation and Childhood Cancer: The Right to Die.” The two panels of experts included medical doctors, lawyers, ethical philosophers and representatives from the media.
All the distinguished experts on the panels were in favour of the right to die and human embryo experimentation. Their comments and challenges from members of the audience, demonstrated that a gulf exists between the desires of the medical profession and the concerns of the public.
The participants in the first panel, on embryo experimentation, were Dr. Pat Taylor, director of Artificial Insemination and In Vitro for the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary; Fr. Kathleen Mahoney, Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, Dr. Abbyann Lynch, Department of Philosophy of the University of Toronto and Director of the Westminster Institute of Applied Ethics, University of Western Ontario; Professor Mike Burgess, Faculty of Medicine and Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary, also a member of the Conjoin Medical Ethics Committee; and Joanne Levy, a CBC employee and a lay member of Calgary’s In Vitro Lay Advisory Committee.
Specifically for research
Dr. Taylor wants permission to fertilize six, rather than 3, human eggs – although fertilized eggs [ed: tiny human beings] are already deemed “excess” and “allowed to perish.” He held up two pictures, one of a baby in a test-tube and another of an eight-celled embryo, and said people were mistaken to think of test-tube babies.
Dr. Abbyann Lynch added that there are two types of embryos, those left over from the In Vitro process, and those specifically created for research purposes. She favoured embryo research up to 14 days after conception. Dr. Lynch noted that the human embryo may be more than it appears to us and researchers should not be able to decide alone about how far they may be legally allowed to experiment on human embryos and fetuses. “They need guidelines from society,” she said.
Professor Mike Burgess outlined a utilitarian ethical basis for looking at the cost benefits of human embryo research. He also stated that there is a need for the media to cover human embryo research in a positive way – to counter the public’s fears.
Joanne Levy assured the audience that transpecie experiments, combining cells from humans and animals, would not be allowed.
Lawyer Kathleen Mahoney reviewed the law, stating that unborn children are not human beings, according to Canadian Law. When questioned, she said that she had grave reservations about human embryo research, but that the onus was on those opposed to such experiments to show why it should not take place.
The opinions of the panel members were strongly challenged by the audience. One woman questioned the allocation of scarce medical resources to projects of such dubious moral enterprise.
Not enough sick kids?
The second panel, on Childhood Cancer and the Right to Die, included Dr. Ted Zief, associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Calgary; Dr. Terry Ackerman, acting director of the Programme on Human Values at the University of Tennessee; Graham Price, a lawyer specializing in medical ethics and legal issues in medicine at the University of Manitoba; and Ann Silversides, a journalist with the Globe and Mail, specializing in health policies.
This panel was also sympathetic towards medical research and had few reservations about using experimental techniques on terminally ill children. One panelist lamented that there may not be enough children with the same terminal disease to provide a reliable control group during certain experiments.
Again, they were challenged by questions from the audience. The panelists were asked whether the right to die meant the right to refuse extraordinary medical treatment or meant mercy killing, suicide, or even included withdrawal of food and water. Dr. Terry Ackerman said that some medical personnel do consider intravenous nutrition a kind of medicine and that by withdrawing these one could say that the patient really died of the disease rather than from starvation. However, when questioned, he would not support this as moral.
Child’s right to die?
Dr. Ted Zief talked of a child’s right to die and the criteria for a useful life, with the proper quality of life. He could not define these terms under questioning.
The strongest audience challenge came from a man who accused the doctors of neo-Nazism for their human experiments and threatened to tear up his organ donor card fearing that doctors may not wait for death to take an organ.
The audience impact was so strong that Dr. Doug Kinsella, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University, used his closing remarks to defend the doctors from being seen as “the bad guys.”
It would seem that the public relations exercise that constituted the real purpose of this symposium was not quite what the doctors expected, due to the audience response. However, the medical professionals’ agenda for human experimentation, quality of life and euthanasia remains intact.
