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Stem cells to be imported
Governor moves despite public debate
The governor of a German state has moved to circumvent a heated public debate over the morality of stem-cell research, by allowing the importation of stem cells taken from the bodies of aborted children.
Wolfgang Clement, governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, announced that he would allow a research institute in Bonn to import stem cells from Israel. The relationship thus created between the Jewish state and the German doctors had particularly ironic overtones, since German critics of stem-cell research had likened the practice to the horrific experiments perpetrated by Nazi doctors on captive Jews during World War II.
The head of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrat party, Franz Müntefering, said that Clement’s plans should have been discussed first by the newly created National Ethics Council. But Clement told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that he had followed guidelines laid out by a national research association.
Schroeder has argued against strict limits on medical research involving stem cells. But the main opposition party, the Christian Democrats, has opposed the use of tissue taken from unborn children. Christian Democrat leaders vow to close the loophole in the current law that allows importation of fetal tissue from other countries.