The contentious issue of human rights for human embryos was opened Wednesday when two scientists, along with a consortium of embryo advocates, filed suit against Kathleen Sebelius, in her capacity as secretary of Health and Human Services, and the director of the National Institutes of Health.

The suit was filed by Dr. James L. Sherley, a senior scientist working at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute, and Dr. Theresa Deisher, research and development director of AVM Biotechnology.

One of the primary charges in the complaint is that the National Institutes of Health guidelines violate existing law.

The lawsuit contends the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which prohibits federal funds being spent for "the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes [and] research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death" greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under existing federal law.

The amendment has been in place for more than 13 years, and has been renewed every year by Congress.

However, the National Institutes of Health guidelines for funding research in which human embryos would be destroyed have been in dispute from the day they were issued. Critics pointed out this would be the first time in history in which taxpayer dollars would be used to fund research that would purposefully result in the destruction of living human embryos.

After the guidelines were issued on July 7, 2009, National Institutes of Health attorneys argued that since the federal government is not funding the actual destruction of the embryos, but only funding the stem cells after being extracted from the embryos, the National Institutes of Health guidelines are not violating the law. 

Thomas G. Hungar, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, calls that explanation “pure sophistry.”

Among other things, the lawsuit alleges:

• Proper procedures were not followed as required by law and did not allow a sufficient time period for comments on the draft guidelines, nor was any response given to comments that were submitted.
• The National Institutes of Health improperly dismissed or ignored substantial scientific research demonstrating adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells  provide ethically and medically superior alternatives to medical experimentation on stem cells derived from human embryos.
• The National Institutes of Health failed to implement proper and necessary safeguards ensuring that embryo donors give truly informed consent and failed to protect against conflicts of interest among the fertility clinic that creates the embryo, the destroyer of the embryo and the recipient of federal funding.
• And finally, that the National Institutes of Health failed to take into account long-established state laws and policies protecting human embryos.

Several individuals and organizations joined in filing the complaint, including the following:

• Nightlight Christian Adoptions (“Nightlight”) is a non-profit, licensed adoption agency located in California and South Carolina that is dedicated to protecting human embryos conceived through in vitro fertilization. Through its “Snowflakes” Program, Nightlight enables adoptive parents to adopt human embryos that are being stored in fertilization clinics.
• Shayne and Tina Nelson, residents of Utah, are clients of Plaintiff Nightlight. The Nelsons have two children, both adopted embryos, and are seeking to adopt additional embryos for implantation.
• William and Patricia Flynn, residents of Massachusetts, are clients of Plaintiff Nightlight. The couple has one child, an adopted embryo, and seek to adopt additional human embryos.

Resource:

Complaint filed to protect embryos:  http://kansasliberty.com/liberty-update-archive/2009/24aug/Complaint.pdf

Nightlight Christian Adoptions: http://www.nightlight.org/

Stem Cell Research:  http://www.stemcellresearch.org

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