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State of the Profession: Keeping the Faith
By Martin D. Snyder
Georgetown is a university of many firsts. Founded in 1789, it was the first Catholic university in the United States and remains, many would argue, the foremost Catholic institution of higher education in this country. Georgetown has balanced the sometimes-competing demands of religion and academic freedom more successfully than many other faith-based universities. Recently, the university demonstrated its adroitness (and common sense) in a controversy over medical research.
The controversy developed along familiar lines. A Florida-based group called the Children of God for Life, established to protest the use of aborted fetal cell lines in the development of vaccines, wrote to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, to complain that some scientists at Georgetown were doing research involving cells that had been derived from aborted fetuses. McCarrick asked Georgetown to look into the group's letter, a request that triggered an unprecedented internal review.
According to the Washington Post, an in-house investigation verified the claim. However, the paper reported, "when fourteen of the researchers involved said that ending the use of the cells in question would jeopardize years of work and funding, the matter was turned over to ethicists. In a recommendation that scholars said could mark a first in Catholic medical research in the United States, Georgetown . . . decided to let those researchers continue their work." McCarrick considered the matter resolved. The executive director of Children of God for Life expressed dismay at the university's ethical compromise.
The Reverend Kevin T. FitzGerald, SJ, a molecular geneticist who holds the university's David Lauler Chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics, explained the university's position. Since the scientists engaged in the controversial research were not aware that the cells had come from aborted fetuses when they began their work, and since the abortions were not performed for the purpose of providing the cells to scientists, the university reasoned that the scientists should not be forced to risk forfeiting grants or to abandon their potentially beneficial studies on treatments for such illnesses as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and heart disease. In a less than perfect world, FitzGerald noted, the university made the best decision it could.
The point here is not to argue the pros and cons of fetal-cell research or, for that matter, to evaluate the university's reasoning. Of vital concern for the Association, however, is the manner in which the issue was handled. Georgetown had several advantages from the outset. The university has a well-articulated statement of philosophy on handling ethical issues (available on the Internet at http://clinicalbioethics.georgetown.edu/). It had experience to draw upon: debates held a decade ago on the use of fetal cells in developing vaccines for chicken pox, measles, mumps, and rubella. But mostly, it had a sane and rational internal procedure for reviewing the issue and for arriving at the best decision possible on a complex and controversial issue. Whatever the final decision, it was made by Georgetown, not by an extrauniversity authority or external pressure group. The academic freedom of the researchers and the autonomy of the university were preserved.
McCarrick demonstrated his good sense and his faith in the judgment of the Georgetown faculty and administration by letting the university handle the issue. He resisted pressure from the Children of God for Life to inject himself inappropriately into the academic life of the university and to impose a decision to the group's liking. He refused to empower the Children of God for Life by becoming the group's agent.
As for the Children of God for Life, one can presume and commend the absolute sincerity of its conviction, and acknowledge as well its right to promulgate its particular point of view. The trouble with many such single-issue groups, however, is that they appear inclined to believe that matters of controversy, especially vexed ones like fetal-cell research, are best resolved by the imposition of authority. Often, groups outside the academy are either unaware or dismissive of the principles of academic freedom and collegial governance. As a result, they prefer to take their cases directly to an ecclesiastical authority, whom they pressure to exercise real or imagined power to whip an offending institution into line. Unfortunately, it is a strategy that often works; this time, it didn't.
Martin Snyder is AAUP director of planning and development.
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