EU: Several Member States oppose community funding of embryonic stem cell research. A Swedish minister gets angry.

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D. | June 6, 2012

While EU governments are currently discussing “Horizon 2020”, the 8th multiannual framework programme for research, several countries have announced that they were not going to support the EU funding of research projects on embryonic stem cells, which is ethically controversial because such cells are obtained from embryos that have been aborted or created in vitro. The move was led by the Austrian government, which was joined by Malta, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland, Ireland and Slovenia. Other countries might follow.

An angry Viking


The Swedish minister for Research, Jan Björklund, who appears to have no qualms at all about the destruction of embryos for research and other purposes, is now trying to use the press to promote his agenda. In an op-ed that was published by the Swedish daily Expressen last week, he rather un-diplomatically leashed out at those governments opposing his stance, saying that “the Catholic Right” was threatening research in Europe, and that a ban on embryonic stem cell research would prevent researchers from finding ground-breaking therapies against all and every disease. Towards end of his article, the rhetoric becomes really pathetic:

Of course it’s not an easy question. Of course, this research must be subject to some restrictions. Of course, it is necessary to submit each project to ethical review. But I cannot look the parents of a seriously ill child into their eyes and tell them: “No, we will prohibit the research that can help your child for religious reasons.”

George W. Bush, using his presidential veto, and with the support of the Christian Right, put an end to government funding of embryonic stem cell research in the US in 2006. Who knows what suffering he has created by delaying the sciences? By contrast, we in Sweden will create the best possible environment for our talented researchers to be able to discover new therapies.

It is disheartening to see how a politician seeks to emotionalize a debate that he could never win if it were conducted on the basis of rational argument, and how he tries to take advantage of the fact that most of his readers, being unfamiliar with the issue he is talking about, can easily be misled. By contrast, whoever is familiar with the topic will easily understand just how disingenuous and hypocritical Mr. Björklund’s argument is:

• First of all, Mr. Björklund’s argument (and more generally the argument of all supporters of embryonic stem cell research) is based on reckless and completely unfounded promises. Tear down all ethical borders and give up all moral objections, he says, and we will provide you with therapies against all and every disease, be it Parkinson, cancer, Alzheimer, Diabetes, or whatever else might capture the attention of the public. Of course, such promises, unrealistic as they are, are playing with the hopes and aspirations of gullible people (such as the parents of a seriously ill child, desperately looking for a therapy to base their hopes upon, which he so artfully mentions in his contribution). But in actual fact, embryonic stem cell research has taken place in several countries (including Sweden) in the last decade, and not a single therapeutic use has resulted from it. Indeed, at the time I write this there is little reason to believe that this would change in the future.

• As informed readers (but maybe not those of Mr. Björklund’s article) will be aware, there are two types of stem cells: “embryonic” and “adult” stem cells. While embryonic stem cells are obtained from embryos that are destroyed in the process, there are other methods to obtain stem cells either from the umbilical cord of a new born baby or from the marrow of an adult person. The use of stem cells obtained that way is ethically uncontroversial, and it is in fact from these “adult” stem cells that any successful therapy that is currently used has been derived. In other words, Mr. Björklund is disingenuous in suggesting that any of the currently existing therapies he is quoting in his article (e.g. cornea and bone marrow transplants created from adult stem cells) has actually to do with embryonic stem cells. No, in actual fact those therapies are based on the research on adult stem cells that for Mr. Björklund does not appear to be a priority.

• By contrast, while research on embryonic stem cells has been taking place in various EU countries (and funded by the EU research budget), it has never yielded any therapeutic use. While the promises of certain researchers (like Oliver Brüstle from Germany) raised very high expectations, it turned out that embryonic stem cells, precisely due to their specific potential of developing into all possible types of cells, act in a similar way as tumor cells: their development cannot be controlled. Whenever these cells were used in experiments with animals, those animals soon developed cancer. In other words, embryonic stem cells cannot be used as a therapy because there is nearly a certainty that the patient who is treated in this way will develop cancer. At the time I write this, there is not even the hint of an indication that any researcher has a way how to solve this problem. It is thus completely unrealistic that research on embryonic stem cells will ever lead to any therapeutic use during the lifetime of the sick child of any desperate parent whose eyes Mr. Björklund may have looked in – even if that child were to live until the age of ninety. Mr. Björklund’s argument is complete bogus and just serves to emotionalize the debate.

• The purpose of the EU framework program is not to allow or to prohibit certain research projects, but to allocate scarce resources. Even the EU’s research budget has some limits, and that is why it should be spent on research that is ethically uncontroversial and at the same time likely to yield some results that are of practical use. The money that is not spent on embryonic stem cells can be spent on other research that is less controversial and more promising.

• If the Swedish government nevertheless wants to promote embryonic stem cell research, there is nothing to prevent it from doing so. But it should use its own funds for this, not the money of taxpayers from countries where such projects, for very good reasons, would be prohibited.

• The position of Austria and other opponents of embryonic stem cell research has recently been confirmed by the Brüstle Decision of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). In that judgment, the CJEU had to interpret a provision in an EU Directive that explicitly prohibits the patenting of inventions whose exploitation, involving uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes, would be contrary to ordre public or morality. The Court, based on rational and scientific arguments, found that the term “human embryo” covers the fertilized egg cell as from the moment of conception, thus dismissing spurious claims that the human being, in the very first stages of its development, were not (yet) a human embryo and thus not deserving of legal protection.

• This decision has evident implications for the research on embryonic stem cells: any result obtained from such research would not be patentable in the EU, precisely for the reason that it is considered immoral. It should be noted in this context that what the Court did in this judgment was simply to interpret the term “human embryo” rationally and in the light of scientific evidence. But the statement that the destruction or commercial use of human embryos is morally unacceptable is not of the Court’s making. It is already included in the applicable EU legislation (EU Directive 44/98).

• The position expressed by Mr. Björklund is thus at variance with the common insights and values that underlie the relevant EU legislation. Moreover, his position is paradox, given that he himself uses the term “embryonic stem cells”, thereby admitting that those cells are obtained from human embryos, and from no other source.

• If, by contrast, Mr. Björklund wanted to say that the human embryos from which those stem cells are obtained are in fact no human embryos, then one would have to ask him: what does he believe they are? Are they vegetables? Or animals? Or merely “a lump of cells”? Well they certainly are “a lump of cells”, but the same could be said about the writer of these lines or of Mr. Björklund himself.

• Be that as it may, it results clearly from the CJEU’s judgment that the position of a number of Member States to oppose EU funding for research on embryonic stem cells finds its basis in EU legislation, which should be interpreted and applied consistently. If the legislator has decided, and the supreme judiciary instance has confirmed, that a certain activity is contrary to public order and morality, then the same legislator should not promote that activity through public funding.

• It is simply a fact, and not a matter of any “religious belief”, that embryonic stem cell research has not yielded the results that some overly optimistic researchers (whose reckless promises seem to have served the purpose of securing public funding for their ethically questionable activities) have forecast.

It seems thus absurd to affirm that “the Religious Right” is attempting to block scientific research and progress.

Do all the Member States’ governments who voted in favour of Directive 98/44 (including Sweden) pertain to the “Religious Right”? Do the CJEU judges who adopted the Brüstle Decision all belong to the “Religious Right”? And the Austrian Government, which is headed by a non-believing Social Democrat, does it also pertain to the “Religious Right”?

Does he really know what this is all about???

The fact that human embryos are human is, as should be self-evident, also not a “religious belief”. Also, it is scientific consensus, and not “religious belief”, that life begins at conception, and that therefore the human embryo without any doubt is a human being. But maybe Mr. Björklund would term as “religious belief any kind of principled and reasoned moral conviction? If it is “religious”
to believe that human beings should not be killed for research purposes, then maybe it is equally “religious” to believe that there should be no racism, no death penalty, no discrimination, no tax fraud and no theft?

Mr. Björklund should know better than that, but apparently he is in need of a scapegoat. With statements like this he polarizes, antagonizes, and incites religious hatred.

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