LONDON, U.K., August 21, 2005: In 2001, President Bush restricted federal financing for stem cell research. The decision, which was shaped at least partly by the Republican Party’s evangelical Christian base, provoked joy in India. The weekly newsmagazine India Today spoke of a “new pot of gold” for Indian science and business. “If Indians are smart,” the magazine said, American qualms about stem cell research “can open an opportunity to march ahead.” Four years later, this seems to have occurred. According to Ernst & Young’s Global Biotechnology Report in 2004, Indian biotechnology companies are expected to grow tenfold in the next five years, creating more than a million jobs. with more than 10,000 highly trained and cheaply available scientists, the country is one of the leading biotechnology powers. A top Indian corporation, the Reliance group, owns Reliance Life Sciences, which is trying to devise new treatments for diabetes and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and create human skin, blood and replacement organs genetically matched to their intended recipients.
American scientists and businessmen note enviously that religious and moral considerations do not seem to inhibit Indian biotechnologists. But this indifference to ethical issues would have certainly appalled Gandhi, father of the Indian nation, says this article. Gandhi accused Western medicine, along with much of modern science and technology, of inflicting violence upon human nature. His vegetarianism and belief in nonviolence were derived from Indian traditions, mainly Hinduism, which is also the faith of most Indian scientists and businessmen. Most evangelical Christians, who believe that the embryo is a person, may find more support in ancient Hindu texts than in the Bible, Many Hindus see the soul–the true Self (or atman)–as the spiritual and imperishable component of human personality. After death destroys the body, the soul soon finds a new temporal home. Thus, for Hindus, life begins at conception. The ancient system of Indian medicine known as ayurveda assumes that fetuses are alive and conscious when it prescribes a particular mental and spiritual regimen to pregnant women. This same assumption is implicit in “The Mahabharata,” the Hindu epic about fratricidal war. But the religions and traditions we know as Hinduism are less monolithic and more diverse than Islam and Christianity; they can yield contradictory arguments. For the full article, click on “source” above.