Oppose

In April 2007, Governor Eliot Spitzer and the New York State Legislature, under the urging of Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, authorized the creation of the Empire State Stem Cell Board (ESSCB).  The ESSCB received $100 million in its first year of operation and the promise of $50 million more per year for the subsequent ten years. The purpose of this eleven year $600 million investment was to fund stem cell research.

In June 2009, the ESSCB authorized payments of up to $10,000 to women who allow researchers to harvest their eggs for experimental purposes. Researchers are looking for human eggs in order to clone human embryos, embryos which will later be destroyed for their stem cells.

Payments are authorized not only for actual expenses involved, but also for time, burden and discomfort. Current New York State Public Health Law (Section 4307) prohibits the sale and purchase of human organs, but the law does not include eggs in the definition of “human organ.” It is this loophole in current law that allows reimbursement to women for their time, burden and discomfort in donating eggs for scientific research.

New York State is the first governmental agency to offer donor compensation and is operating against the ethical recommendations of the National Institute of Health (NIH). The NIH does not permit federal dollars to be spent on stem cell research that uses embryos derived from procedures that require women to donate eggs, due to the health and ethical implications, including the health risk to the women who donates.[i]

The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) also recognizes this moral dilemma. The NAS finds, “It is most problematic in the case of oocyte donation solely for research purposes, because the invasiveness and risks of the procedure suggest that financial remuneration is most deserved, but at the same time there is a greater likelihood of enticing potential donors to do something that poses some risk to themselves.”[ii] Therefore, the NAS guidelines state, “No payments, cash or in kind, should be provided for donating oocytes for research purposes.”[iii]

In this difficult economy, the temptation of a $10,000 payment is simply too much to resist for some women. Payments will induce low-income and college-age women to sacrifice their long-term health and safety for a short-term financial gain. Egg stimulation and extraction carries significant health risks, including, but not limited to, ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, clotting disorders, kidney damage, ovarian twisting, pulmonary embolism, damage to future reproductive ability, and stroke.

While New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms argues that embryonic stem cell research is morally irresponsible, a recent Empire Center report entitled “Blueprint for a Better Budget”[iv] bolsters the view that it is also fiscally irresponsible.  In the report, the Empire Center asserts:

In 2007, New York created its own fund to subsidize stem cell research. While the Empire State had never committed so much direct support to any other form of medical research, the stem cell initiative served to highlight ideological differences between New York officials and the Bush administration on the restriction of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Those restrictions have now been loosened by the Obama administration, and a state-funded stem cell fund is a luxury New York taxpayers could not afford in any case. Cutting-edge medical and scientific innovation is best left to the traditionally effective mix of private venture capital and federal support. State officials can best strengthen the prospects of New York’s own medical research sector by adopting comprehensive pro-growth economic policies. Eliminating the stem cell fund will save $66.2 million in 2010-11, growing to $163 million by 2012-13.

New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms is advocating for the removal of ESSCB funding from the New York State Budget on the grounds that it is both morally and fiscally irresponsible.