Collins is one of the most influential scientists in America today. He previously headed the Human Genome Project -- the massive federal project to decode the genetic structure of human life. President Barack Obama nominated Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health on July 8, 2009, and he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate just a month later. At the time, several leading scientists voiced their opposition to his nomination, citing concerns about Collins's identification as an evangelical Christian. Several critics expressed particular concern about his position on the use of cells drawn from human embryos in stem cell research -- an enterprise that falls under NIH supervision.
This question is particularly pressing given the fact that President Obama had pledged to lift restrictions President George W. Bush had placed on federal funding for such research. President Obama did that on March 9, effectively changing the federal government's position on the moral status of the human embryo.
There should have been no surprise when proponents of human embryonic stem cell experimentation raised questions about where Francis Collins stands on the question. A look at his published comments raised more questions than were resolved. In his book The Language of God, he wrote:
Many observers who are otherwise opposed to human embryo research have argued, however, that despite the likely ultimate destruction of excess embryos after IVF, the desire of a couple to have a child is such a strong moral good that it justifies the procedure. That may well be a defensible position, but if so, it challenges the principle that the inevitable destruction of human embryos should be avoided at all costs, no matter what the potential benefits.
The language Dr. Collins employed here, such as "may well be a defensible position," is anything but clear, but he was clear in questioning "the principle that the inevitable destruction of human embryos should be avoided at all costs."
In a 2006 interview, Dr. Collins said, "I would be opposed to the idea of creating embryos by mixing sperm and eggs together and then experimenting on the outcome of that, purely to understand research questions." He went on to raise, "on the other hand," his concern that "there are hundreds of thousands of such embryos in freezers at in vitro fertilization clinics." He continued:
In the process of in vitro fertilization, you almost invariably end up with more embryos than you can reimplant safely. The plausibility of those ever being reimplanted in the future - more than a few of them - is extremely low. Is it more ethical to leave them in those freezers forever or throw them away? Or is it more ethical to come up with some sort of use for those embryos that could help people? I think that's not been widely discussed.
In 2001, he told Christianity Today:
It is a classic example of a collision between two very important principles. One is the sanctity of human life and the other is our strong mandate as human beings to alleviate suffering and to treat terrible diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's, and spinal-cord injury. The very promising embryonic stem-cell research might potentially provide remarkable cures for those disorders. We don't know that, but it might. And at the same time, many people feel, I think justifiably, this type of research is taking liberties with the notion of the sanctity of human life, by manipulating cells derived from a human embryo.
