Fetal Skin Cells

Scientists have discusses the theoretical potential of using human fetal cells to cure diseases and wounds for years. Only recently, however, did one group of Swiss scientists prove that fetal skin cells can be used to develop a type of "biological bandage" for severe burn victims. Before discussing the moral consequences of this new procedure, it is important to highlight its merits.

First, the procedure greatly speeds and improves the healing process. Eight children with severe second and third degree burns were treated; doctors at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, treated these children with panels of artificial fetal skin, all grown from a postage-stamp-size sample of skin taken three years ago from an aborted fetus. Though these panels dissolved and had to be replaced every few days, they did not simply cover the burn with a layer of healthy cells; they actually seemed to "confer restorative power to the damaged tissue underneath, allow it to heal itself." The fetal cells actually stimulate healing.

Secondly, fetuses promise an endless source of skin cells for burn victims. As Dr. Holdfeld points out, while it is true that cells originate from terminated fetuses, one biopsy is enough to treat thousands of patients for years. Furthermore, the results are simply much better than traditional skin grafting, where skin is borrowed from another part of the body and grafted over the burns. Grafted skin, however, regenerates poorly, and is often painful and disfiguring, especially in children, since these grafts do not expand as the children's bodies grow, which means that they would require repeated, painful surgeries as they matured. In contrast, the children treated with the fetal skin were able to heal their wounds with skin that appeared more or less normal, with normal pigment and mobility. Since the fetal skin layers were simply placed on the wounds, the children required no surgery. Certainly, using fetal skin cells seems a completely promising and revolutionary practice.

When, then, can Americans look forward to such efficient and revolutionary burn treatment? Unfortunately, not any time soon. The laws in the United Stated restricting the use of stem and fetal cells will prevent any quick assimilation of these new medical practices, and the current administration seems keen on keeping it that way. Yet I believe that regardless of political stance, the use of fetal cells is justified in this instance.

The cells come from aborted fetuses. Therefore, as long as abortions are still legal in the United States, there will, however unfortunately, be a supply of fetal cells that can be used to help and heal others. Despite what critics say, using cells from a fetus would not increase the number of abortions or cause more women to abort their babies. Simply put, this new procedure will be making use of something that society currently has no use for - indeed, often condemns.

On a deeper level, though, if one were to examine exactly what doctors and medicine owe, one realizes that it is better to treat the sick than the dead. As Atul Gawande would not, doctors have an obligation to attempt to provide their patients with the best possible treatment. What if using fetal cells for their burns was the best possible treatment? Clearly, Swiss citizens will soon have access to this form of treatment. Why deny it, then, to a similar patient on this side of the Atlantic? The best thing for doctors to do would be to continually attempt to give their patients the best treatment possible, whether that would be to counsel against unsafe sex or write a prescription for birth control or conduct safe abortions only when necessary and donate the fetus to a research facility that would use the cells to save other lives. In the end, the fetus is already dead. The burn victims, however, are very much alive, and the pain that they feel pain is very real and deserves immediate treatment.

Something I realized through the course of my academic journey, however, is that many of these new treatments for skin grafts - and most other diseases - cause us to question what our morals ought to be. Is a face transplant an entirely superfluous surgery? Or does it give another human being a second chance at a normal life? Are cosmetic surgeries simply one application of new medicinal discoveries? Or is America's Consumerism driving this need to develop more procedures that "improve" instead of heal? In the end, I would like to see scientific discoveries that completely avoid these moral issues. If science can find miracle uses for stem cells and aborted fetuses, it can also attempt to synthesize these same materials in a lab without dealing with the issue of human life and when it begins. Though I am a very liberal aspiring scientists, I understand that not everyone else is, and that medicine has an obligation to help everyone, even if that means coming up with a different, and hopefully better, procedure that does not conflict with their personal beliefs. In short, if we can generate cells in vitro that the do the same thing as stem or fetal cells, then we have all the merits of this research without the [im]moral consequences.

To anyone who does oppose the use of these cells, however, I would like to pose the following question:
Suppose you are in a building when the fire alarm goes off. You smell smoke and want to get out of the building as soon as possible. You are not, however, alone in this room; in front of you are a crying and frightened child and a freezer filled with 1000 stem cells, each of which is viable and could produce a baby. You only have time to save one: the child or the freezer. Who do you save?