The Boston Globe wants to present in the best possible light Harvard University’s research program on embryonic stem cell research. That’s why the Globe is praising the "ethically sensitive" standards by which researchers plan to obtain donated human eggs:
…the Harvard researchers are doing their best to minimize risk. They will not be using Lupron [a drug that raises particular concern] and they will be regulating doses of other drugs to minimize danger.
They also will not be offering the kind of inducements that might cause women to cast aside caution in the interest of financial gain. Egg donation for use in infertility treatment typically earns a woman $5,000 in Massachusetts. State law forbids this kind of payment for stem-cell research.
A state advisory commission recently decided that women could be reimbursed for time off from work. The Harvard researchers won’t even allow that. All a woman will get is reimbursement for such immediate expenses as cab fare. It’s unclear whether any women will be willing to take part in these experiments.
These sound like fairly standard precautions to take to ensure the ethical use of human beings (in this case the women — obviously, the state advisory commission has not considered the ethical use of the human beings who might be created by cloning) as research subjects. Whatever else one can say about them, such means of obtaining eggs — unlike what goes on in egg-harvesting for fertility clinics — can accurately be called "donation."
Cloning is wrong. But the point I want to make here is not that. If the Boston Globe is ready to praise Harvard and the state advisory commission for their care in setting guidelines to ensure that women won’t be exploited by stem cell researchers, is it also ready to condemn the lack of such guidelines in the artificial-conception industry?
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