Elliot Spitzer

While last week's passage of the stem cell research bill by the House of Representatives made a big splash, it's really almost a non-event. It will simply replay President Bush's veto from last year. The real stem cell funding news was in Albany. There, New York's new governor is proposing that some serious public money back embryonic stem cell research. But the proposal may not be what first meets the eye.

Liberal darling Gov. Elliot Spitzer proposed $2 billion for stem cell and other biotech research, paid by bonds. Since California's $3 billion program, this is the first stem cell research proposal of real significance; the other "stem cell states" have been setting aside small, token amounts. New York's proposal would need to be approved by both houses of the state legislature, as well as by voters. It remains unclear how the program would balance the stem cell component with the other biomedical research.

What is clear is that, from the perspective of rescuing human embryonic stem cell research from President Bush's policy, such state programs are less and less relevant. Bush's restrictions on federal support will almost certainly be quickly repealed by the next president, regardless of his or her party. New York's funds wouldn't be available until mid-2008 at the soonest, while a new president will be inaugurated in January 2009.

It's simple: If the goal is saving lives, shouldn't embryonic stem cell research compete for public research dollars on equal footing with other biomedical endeavors? If so, then why set aside billions of state dollars for this fairly narrow range of work? One possible answer is that the work is, in fact, not so narrow. Both California's program and New York's proposal can support other biomedical research.

Perhaps sugar coating a multi-billion dollar subsidy for the biotech industry with a layer of politically-sweet stem cell research makes the pill go down smoothly for voters in blue states. The question remains, though, whether this is the right medicine for what ails New Yorkers and Californians.

Feminist scholar and activist Betsy Hartmann has long cautioned that fears of “over-population” are being used to introduce coercive family planning practices. She is now flagging a new worrisome trend: conservatives who are pushing the view that sex selection in South Asia, which is causing what they term a “surplus” of unmarried young men, constitutes a threat to global and national security.

This argument is elaborated in a 2004 book titled Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population. Hartmann writes that the book “has circulated widely in academic and policy circles and its arguments have attracted the attention of media pundits as well as the CIA.” The term “bare branches,” she explains, is

a Chinese expression for males who lack a spouse and offspring, are more likely to be poor, transient, uneducated and most importantly, prone to violent crime, substance abuse and collective aggression.

Though conservative, [Bare Branches] plays to liberal interests concerned about the very real problem of distorted sex ratios in Asia. Therein lies the danger. In the name of women's rights, it could make more palatable the continuing stereotyping and scapegoating of young men in the global south and migrants in the global north.

A Center for Genetics and Society analysis, Federal Stem Cell Policy: Lessons from California, has been included in a memo prepared by The Third Way, a DC-based “strategy center for progressives.”

The Third Way memo, The Responsible Path Forward on Stem Cell Research: Supporting DeGette-Castle while Avoiding the Traps, is aimed at today's House vote on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.

Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z’s recently released coming-out-of-retirement album includes a track where he proclaims, “30 is the new 20.” But are sexagenarians now considered middle aged? News from Spain that a 67-year-old has given birth to twins suggests that, at least in one way, they might be. After undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF), this unidentified Spanish woman has become the oldest woman to give birth, surpassing Adriana Iliescu who also underwent IVF and gave birth in 2005 at the age of 66.

Is this an appropriate use of reproductive technologies? Some argue that infertility at any age is a disease that should be treated. Others evade questions of age appropriateness by focusing on women’s reproductive choice; Roe and its global corollaries, from this perspective, have no age limit.

The relationship between reproductive choice and human biotechnology is complicated and deserves more thought. And, as a recent New York Timesarticle suggests, identifying each of life’s misfortunes as a “disease” reflects shifting social expectations as health care markets expand and technology advances rather than any bona fide medical condition.

While many older women want to have children for all the right reasons, the fertility industry may be turning grandmothers into mothers for the wrong ones: to make money and simply see if it can be done. The ethics here are certainly questionable, but the larger impact fertility drugs and multiple-birth pregnancies have on women’s and children’s health suggest that we are approaching the fine line between treating infertility and experimenting on humans. And, in a growing number of cases, that line is behind us.