The first blow came when long-awaited results from the Parkinson's study hit the media. The study involved 40 patients between the ages of 34 and 75 with Parkinson's. Half of them received "sham" surgery, and the other half, the transplant of cells from the "substantia nigra." After following the patients for one year, researchers found that there were devastating side effects in 15 percent of those who received the transplant.

Meanwhile, Nightlight Christian Adoptions and several couples interested in adopting embryos filed their lawsuit, which demands that the National Institutes of Health stop the grant application process and appropriation of money to scientists doing research with stem cells harvested from human embryos.

These developments have motivated anti-abortion groups to say that they are no longer pinning all their hopes on President Bush's signing an executive order banning federal funding of this type of research. They believe that the new scientific evidence, and the impact of the lawsuit, could end the practice of controversial cell research without presidential intervention.

"The study took everybody by surprise," says Scott Weinberg, spokesman for the American Life League, which supports the suit but is not named as a plaintiff. "This completely undercuts the scientific claims that this kind of research is necessary. We've always strongly opposed these unsubstantiated claims, and [the research] merely proves that this is deleterious not only for the patient but for the embryonic person."

The groups listed as plaintiffs in the suit, along with Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which facilitates the adoption by infertile couples of unwanted frozen embryos stored at fertility clinics, include the Christian Medical Association; a woman from Arizona who is pregnant with an adopted embryo; and California and Colorado couples who want to adopt embryos and contend that stem cell research curtails the availability of embryos for adoption.

"We have an ethical alternative which is scientifically better than the embryonic stem cells," says Dr. David Prentice, a professor of life sciences at Indiana State University and a plaintiff in the suit. "There is no reason to do this research that destroys human embryos and, especially, to use human tax dollars to fund that research."

The current guidelines for stem cell research, which are at the center of the debate, were issued in August by the Clinton administration. While it is still illegal to use federal money to extract stem cells from discarded embryos, the regulations allow research with embryonic cells as long as they are obtained from and paid for by private sources.

The lawsuit alleges that these regulations are contrary to "ethical norms that protect human life from medical experimentation," and that the government has ignored other viable sources from which stem cells can be derived, such as adult bone marrow.

Last week, Tommy Thompson, the newly appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that government scientists would evaluate the guidelines and issue a decision on their propriety sometime this summer. But the impetus for Thursday's lawsuit was another statement by Thompson indicating that the NIH will continue to accept applications for grants in this area of research until March 15. Thompson, HHS, NIH and its acting director were all named in the suit. A spokesman for HHS said he could not comment on the complaint, and a call to the White House for comment was not returned.

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