Seizure by Robin Cook Read Free Book Online

forward to answer, but Ashley held up his hand. “That question is off the record, and there’s no need to answer.”
    The clerk made the adjustment on her machine.
    Ashley then looked to his left. “This is off the record too,but I was curious if the distinguished senator from Montana agrees with me that doctors purposefully have developed their own language just so that half the time we mere mortals have no idea under the sun what the dickens they are talking about.”
    There was more laughter from the spectators, as the senator from Montana looked up from his reading and nodded an enthusiastic yes.
    â€œNow, where was I?” Ashley questioned, as he looked back at his prepared opening statement. “The need for this legislation lies in the problem that biotechnology in general and medical science in particular in this country have lost their moral and ethical underpinnings. We here on the Senate’s Health Policy Subcommittee feel it is our duty as concerned and moral Americans to reverse this trend by following the lead of our colleagues in the House. Ends do not justify means, particularly in the medical research arena, as was unequivocally stated as far back as the Nuremberg Trials. This HTSR is a case in point. This procedure once again threatens to create poor, defenseless embryos and then dismember them with the dubious justification that the cells derived from these nascent, tiny humans will be used to treat a wide variety of patients. But that’s not all. As we will hear in testimony from its discoverer, whom we are honored to have here as a witness, this is no ordinary therapeutic cloning procedure, and I, as the bill’s principal author, am shocked that this procedure is poised to become mainstream. Well, I say only over my dead body!”
    A modest level of applause issued from a smattering of audience members. Ashley acknowledged it with a nod of his head and a short pause. Then he took a deep breath. “Now, I could go on about this new technique, but I’m not a doctor, and I respectfully defer to the expert, who has graciously come before this subcommittee. I would like to proceed with the witness, unless my eminent-ranking colleague from across the aisle would like to say a few words.”
    Ashley regarded the senator seated to his immediate right, who shook his head, covered his microphone with his palm, and leaned toward the chairman. “Ashley,” he whispered. “I hope you are going to be expeditious about his. I’ve got to be out of here by ten-thirty.”
    â€œHave no fear,” Ashley whispered back. “I’m going for the jugular here.”
    Ashley took a drink from the glass of water in front of him and peered down at Daniel. “Our first witness is the brilliant Dr. Daniel Lowell, who, as I’ve already mentioned, is the discoverer of HTSR. Dr. Lowell has impressive credentials, including M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from some of our country’s most august institutions. Somehow he even found time to do a residency in internal medicine. He has received countless awards for his work and has held prestigious positions at Merck pharmaceuticals and Harvard University. Welcome, Dr. Lowell.”
    â€œThank you, Senator,” Daniel said. He moved forward in his chair. “I appreciate your kind remarks about my curriculum vitae, but, if I may, I’d like to take immediate issue with a particular point in your opening statement.”
    â€œBy all means,” Ashley responded.
    â€œHTSR and therapeutic cloning do not, I repeat, do not involve the dismemberment of embryos.” Daniel spoke slowly, emphasizing each word. “The therapeutic cells are taken before any embryo has started to form. They are taken from a structure called a blastocyst.”
    â€œDo you deny these blastocysts are incipient human life?”
    â€œThey are human life, but when disaggregated, their cells are similar to the cells you lose