: Common morality theory must confront apparent counterexamples from the history of morality, such as the widespread acceptance of slavery in prior eras, that suggest core norms have changed over time. A recent defense of common morality theory addresses this problem by drawing a distinction between the content of the norms of the common morality and the range of individuals to whom these norms apply. This distinction is successful in reconciling common morality theory with practices such as slavery, but (...) only at the cost of underscoring the limits of common morality theory, in particular its inability to resolve disputes about the moral status of entities. Given that many controversies in bioethics center on the disputed status of various entities, such as embryos and nonhuman animals, this is an important limitation. Nonetheless, common morality theory still can be a useful resource in diminishing moral conflict on issues that do not involve disputes over moral status. (shrink)

I argue against the view that modern biology has undermined traditional moral rules, including the prohibition of abortion and restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research, by blurring the distinction between humans and other animals. I argue that this view depends on the false premise that an organism can be wronged only if the organism has conscious interests. I then defend a rule against harvesting stem cells in a way that kills an organism with a rational nature. Finally, I (...) apply this rule to proposals about altered nuclear transfer and animal-human chimeras. (shrink)

Embryonic stem cell research is morally and politically controversial because the process of deriving the embryonic stem cells kills embryos. If embryos are, as some would claim, human beings like you and me, then ES cell research is clearly impermissible. If, on the other hand, the blastocysts from which embryonic stem cells are derived are not yet human beings, but rather microscopic balls of undifferentiated cells, as others maintain, then ES cell research is probably morally permissible. Whether the research can (...) be justified depends on such issues as its cost, chance of success, and numbers likely to benefit. But this is an issue for any research project, not just ES cell research. What makes the debate over ES cell research controversial is that it, like the debate over abortion, raises “questions that politicians cannot settle: when does human life begin, and what is the moral status of the human embryo?” This paper looks at several theories of moral status and their implications for embryo research. (shrink)

When prospective parents use in vitro fertilization, many of them hope to generate more embryos than they intend to implant immediately. The technology often requires multiple attempts to reach a successful pregnancy, and couples can cryopreserve any excess embryos so that they have them on hand for later attempts. As part of obtaining informed consent for IVF or cryopreservation, clinics typically ask patients to specify their preferences for the embryos in the event of divorce or death, offering options such as (...) use of the embryos by a specified partner, donation to research, or discarding the remaining embryos. Still, many courts face a recurring problem: the partners dissolve their relationship, and one party wants to use the frozen embryos over the objections of the other. Courts and legislatures have struggled with how to handle these cases, which seem to pit one partner's right to procreate against the other's right not to procreate. In this essay, we use one of the most recent decisions in this line of cases—the Appellate Court of Illinois's decision in Szafranski v. Dunston—to explain the current state of the law and make recommendations for changes. The issue is ripe for revisiting because in the last year, embryo disputes have become a battlefront for larger conflagrations over the moral status of embryos. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References Further reading.

The intense and extensive debate over human embryonic stem cell research has focused primarily on the moral status of the human embryo. Some commentators assign full moral status of normal adult human beings to the embryo from the moment of its conception. At the other extreme are those who believe that a human embryo has no significant moral status at the time it is used and destroyed in stem cell research. (...) And in between are many intermediate positions that assign an embryo some degree of moral status between none and full. This controversy and the respective positions, like the abortion controversy, is by now well understood, despite the lack of progress in resolving it. I have argued briefly elsewhere that early embryos do not have significant moral status, but I do not want to reenter that debate here. Instead, I want to focus on an issue that has had relatively little explicit and separate attention, but is likely to loom larger in light of the Obama administration’s partial lifting of the Bush administration’s restriction on the embryos that can be used in stem cell research that receives federal funding. (shrink)

There is a significant debate over the moral status of human embryos. This debate has important implications for practices like abortion and IVF. Some argue that embryos have the same moral status as infants, children, and adults. However, critics claim that the frequency of pregnancy loss/miscarriage/spontaneous abortion shows a moral inconsistency in this view. One line of criticism is that those who know the facts about pregnancy loss and nevertheless attempt to conceive children are (...) willing to sacrifice embryos lost for the healthy children they ultimately have. I respond to this criticism and argue that on the most plausible accounts of well-being, these embryos are not made worse off and thus not “sacrifices.” I then make some more general remarks about what people’s typical views about pregnancy loss show about their views toward the moral status of embryos. (shrink)

In the first part of this article, I argue that even those entities that in their own right and for their own sake give us reason not to destroy them and to help them are sometimes substitutable for the good of other entities. In so arguing, I consider the idea of being valuable as an end in virtue of intrinsic and extrinsic properties. I also conclude that entities that have claims to things and against others are especially nonsubstitutable. In the (...) second part, I argue that cloning poses no threat to the nonsubstitutability of these entities (and in this sense, to the dignity of persons). I also consider the relation between cloning and (what I called) holistic identity, and between the latter and genetic identity. In the concluding part of the article, I try to distinguish cases where identity over time and so-called person-affecting acts have and do not have greater moral significance than nonidentity over time and nonperson-affecting acts. I try to apply my results to cases involving embryos, future generations, and to the so-called Non-Identity Problem. (shrink)

It seems obvious that phenomenally conscious experience is something of great value, and that this value maps onto a range of important ethical issues. For example, claims about the value of life for those in a permanent vegetative state, debates about treatment and study of disorders of consciousness, controversies about end-of-life care for those with advanced dementia, and arguments about the moral status of embryos, fetuses, and non-human animals arguably turn on the moral significance of various facts (...) about consciousness. However, though work has been done on the moral significance of elements of consciousness, such as pain and pleasure, little explicit attention has been devoted to the ethical significance of consciousness. In this book Joshua Shepherd presents a systematic account of the value present within conscious experience. This account emphasizes not only the nature of consciousness, but the importance of items within experience such as affect, valence, and the complex overall shape of particular valuable experiences. Shepherd also relates this account to difficult cases involving non-humans and those with disorders of consciousness, arguing that the value of consciousness influences and partially explains the degree of moral status a being possesses, without fully determining it. The upshot is a deeper understanding of both the moral importance of phenomenal consciousness and its relations to moral status. This book will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, bioethics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

Recent controversy over philosophical advocacy of infanticide (or the comically-styled euphemism ‘postnatal abortion’) reveals a surprisingly common premise uniting many of the opponents and supporters of the practice. This is the belief that the moral status of the early fetus or embryo with respect to a right to life is identical to that of a newly born or even very young baby. From this premise, infanticidists and strong anti-abortionists draw opposite conclusions, the former that the (...) healthy newly born have no inherent right to life and the latter that minute embryos and the very early fetus have the same right to life as young babies. (Indeed strong anti-abortionists tend to regard this right to life as identical to that possessed by adult humans.) This paper argues that these opposed conclusions are both deeply implausible and that the implausibility resides in the common premise. The argument requires some attention to the structure of the philosophical case underpinning the supposed vice of speciesism that has been given intellectual currency by many philosophers, most notably Peter Singer, and also to the reasoning behind the strong anti-abortionist adoption of the common premise. (shrink)

The development of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) as a treatment for human infertilty was among the most controversial medical achievements of the modern era. In Ireland, the fate and status of supranumary (non-transferred) embryos derived from IVF brings challenges both for clinical practice and public health policy because there is no judicial or legislative framework in place to address the medical, scientific, or ethical uncertainties. Complex legal issues exist regarding informed consent and ownership of embryos, particularly the use of (...) non-transferred embryos if a couple separates or divorces. But since case law is only beginning to emerge from outside Ireland and because legislation on IVF and human embryo status is entirely absent here, this matter is poised to raise contractual, constitutional and property law issues at the highest level. Our analysis examines this medico-legal challenge in an Irish context, and summarises key decisions on this issue rendered from other jurisdictions. The contractual issues raised by the Roche case regarding informed consent and the implications the initial judgment may have for future disputes over embryos are also discussed. Our research also considers a putative Constitutional 'right to procreate' and the implications EU law may have for an Irish case concerning the fate of frozen embryos. Since current Medical Council guidelines are insufficient to ensure appropriate regulation of the advanced reproductive technologies in Ireland, the report of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction is most likely to influence embryo custody disputes. Public policy requires the establishment and implementation of a more comprehensive legislative framework within which assisted reproductive medical services are offered. (shrink)

Many debates about the moral status of things—for example, debates about the natural rights of human fetuses or nonhuman animals—eventually migrate towards a discussion of the capacities of the things in question—for example, their capacities to feel pain, think, or love. Yet the move towards capacities is often controversial: if a human’s capacities are the basis of its moral status, how could a human having lesser capacities than you and I have the same "serious" moral (...) status as you and I? This book answers this question by arguing that if something is human, it has a set of typical human capacities; that if something has a set of typical human capacities, it has serious moral status; and thus all human beings have the same sort of serious moral status as you and I. Beginning from what our common intuitions tell us about situations involving "temporary incapacitation"—where a human organism has, then loses, then regains a certain capacity—this book argues for substantive conclusions regarding human fetuses and embryos, humans in a permanent vegetative state, humans suffering from brain diseases, and humans born with genetic disorders. Since these conclusions must have some impact on our ongoing moral and political debates about the proper treatment of such humans, this book will be useful to professionals and students in philosophy, bioethics, law, medicine, and public policy. (shrink)

In a recent discussion of human in vitro fertilisation, Kuhse and Singer argue that it is legitimate to destroy unwanted embryos. Their argument fails: it involves at least two and possibly three logical fallacies. If the destruction of embryos is to be justified an alternative argument will have to be found.

The phenomenon of twinning in early fetal development has become a popular source for doubt regarding the ascription of moral status to early embryos. In this paper, the possible moral basis for such a line of reasoning is critically analysed with sceptical results. Three different versions of the argument from twinning are considered, all of which are found to rest on confusions between the actual division of embryos involed in twinning and the property of early embryos to (...) be divisible, be based on highly questionable ethical assumptions, or to imply inconsistent claims regarding the moral importance of potentiality and/or the moral status of embryos. This is taken to expose a number of related inconsistencies in the moral basis of pro-life positions. In particular, ascribing moral significance to the property of being (in)divisible is found to be incompatible with the claim that human individuals possess unique values which could underpin an absolute moral ban on murder. (shrink)

The article focuses on the status of the transmission approach to communication. The approach is derived from Claude Shannon’s and Warren Weaver’s mathematical theory of communication, and is primarily used for the analysis of telecommunications processes. Within the model a metaphorical conceptualisation of communication is adopted, as conveying (transmission) of information (thoughts, emotions) from the mind of a subject A to the mind of a subject B. Despite the great popularity of the transmission approach, it is subjected to multilateral (...) criticism. Alternative approaches were formulated in which the transmission metaphor is exceeded, extended or even overcome (e.g., the constitutive, transactional, or the ritual approaches). This paper discusses such criticism. The doubts are raised primarily by the characteristic reductionism and the postulated exclusivity of the transmission approach. A question ariseswhether all the possible types of communication activities can be represented within the transmission approach as a transfer of information. In this context, the dispute between the supporters of the universalistic and the relativistic attitudes to the transmission metaphor is discussed. The polemic also concerns the psychologism elements which are present in the transmission models. Wittgenstein's criticism of psychologism conducted within the framework of his everyday language philosophy is of particular importance. The philosophy may applied to the problem of interpersonal communication. In conclusion it is assumed that the transmission metaphor is important as a tool for the study of many, but not all the aspects of communication. Its importance also lies in the fact that it is the first scientific approach to communication. The exclusivity claims of the transmission model, however, have several limitations, inter alia, it hinders research on the history of communication practices, although the model itself is embedded in a specific historical context. (shrink)

Combining human embryonic stem cells with SCNT has been a gold standard of stem cell research. Adding a particular individual's genes to pluripotent stem cells might lead to the development of personalized tissue repair or replacement. Enthusiasm for human embryonic stem cell research had flagged in recent years due to controversy over the moral status of in vitro embryos, scientific misconduct by researcher Woo Suk Hwang, and the discovery that induced pluripotent stem cells could be produced (...) from somatic cells. Energy shifted to research on somatic cells, but three successes in the United States during 2013 and 2014 may reinvigorate embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Summed up in the coinage of the term ‘pre‐embryo’is the denial that human beings, as such, begin to exist from the moment of conception. This denial, which may be thought to have significant moral implications, rests on two kinds of reason. The first is that the pre‐embryo lacks the characteristics of a human being. The second is that the pre‐embryo lacks what it takes to be an individual human being. The first reason, I argue, embodies (...) an untenable view of what it is to be human. The second reason exploits certain logical difficulties which arise over the possibility of twinning. I question the relevance of the appeal to such difficulties and conclude that there is no good reason for denying that a human being begins to exist from the moment of conception. (shrink)

The determination of individual moral status is a central factor in the ethical evaluation of controversial practices such as elective abortion, human embryo-destructive research, and the care of the severely disabled and those in persistent vegetative states. A review of recent work on Kant reveals the need for a careful examination of the content of Kant ’s biological and psychological theories and their relation to his views about moral status. Such an examination, in conjunction with (...) Kant ’s practical-metaphysical analysis of the origins of freedom, reveals Kant ’s principled basis for his contention that all human beings possess moral status. (shrink)

Embryo adoption is a topic of considerable debate in the Church. Well over a million human embryos are currently being kept in cryogenic containers with little prospect of survival. The desire to rescue these vulnerable human beings is natural. However, the processes required to do so raise serious questions regarding the ethics of embryo adoptions. The violation of the unitive and procreative aspects of human intercourse and its ramifications on the moral status of heterologous (...) class='Hi'>embryo transfer are key to understanding the reasoning behind some objections to human embryo adoption. (shrink)

In bioethics as in the sciences, enormous discussions often concern the very small. Central to public debate over emerging reproductive and regenerative biotechnologies is the question of the moral status of the human embryo. Because news media have played a prominent role in framing the vocabulary of the debate, this study surveyed the use of language reporting on human embryo research in news articles spanning a two-year period. Terminology that devalued moral status - (...) for example, the descriptors things, property, tissue, or experimental material - was found to outnumber fivefold those that affirmed any degree of moral status above that of inanimate cellular matter ; for example, living, human life, or human being. A quarter of the articles failed to note that the embryos under discussion were human. These findings confirm that even among scientific and philosophical experts a diversity of opinion exists on society's moral obligations to nascent human life. The skewed linguistic distribution also indicates a distinct bias. Concerned readers should take notice when any category of humanity becomes subject to prejudicial and disparaging language and the value of vulnerable human life is trivialized alongside sensational assertions of anticipated medical cures. The responsibility for holding the media to a higher standard of truth and fairness falls to us all. (shrink)

Recent arguments on the ethics of stem cell research have taken a novel approach to the question of the moral status of the embryo. One influential argument focuses on a property that the embryo is said to possess—namely, the property of being an entity with a rational nature or, less controversially, an entity that has the potential to acquire a rational nature—and claims that this property is also possessed by a somatic cell. Since nobody seriously thinks (...) that we have a duty to preserve the countless such cells we wash off our body every day in the shower, the argument is intended as a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that the embryo should be afforded the same moral status as a fully developed human being. This article argues that this argument is not successful and that it consequently plays into the hands of those who oppose embryonic stem cell research. It is therefore better to abandon this argument and focus instead on the different argument that potentiality, as such, is not a sufficient ground for the creation of moral obligations towards the embryo. (shrink)

Some have argued that embryos and fetuses have the moral status of personhood because of certain criteria that are satisfied during gestation. However, these attempts to base personhood during gestation on intrinsic characteristics have uniformly been unsuccessful. Within a secular framework, another approach to establishing a moral standing for embryos and fetuses is to argue that we ought to confer some moral status upon them. There appear to be two main approaches to defending conferred (...) class='Hi'>moral standing; namely, consequentialist and contractarian arguments. This article puts forward a consequentialist argument for the conferred moral standing of preembryos, embryos, fetuses, and infants. It states and defends an original version of the commonlyheld view that moral standing increases during gestation. It also explores the implications of this viewpoint for several issues: what is involved in showing ‘respect’ for preembryos; and whether it is permissible to create preembryos solely for research. (shrink)

Many controversies in bioethics turn on questions of moral status. Some moral status issues have received extensive bioethical attention, including those raised by abortion, embryo experimentation, and animal research. Beyond these established debates lie a less familiar set of moral status issues, many of which are tied to recent scientific breakthroughs. This review article surveys some key developments that raise moral status issues, including the development of in vitro brains, part-human animals, (...) “synthetic” embryos, and artificial womb technologies. It introduces the papers in this Special Issue, contextualises their contributions to the moral status literature, and highlights some enduring challenges of determining the moral status of novel types of beings. (shrink)

Moral status ascribes equal obligations and rights to individuals on the basis of membership in a protected group. Substance change is an event that results in the origin or cessation of individuals who may be members of groups with equal moral status. In this paper, two substance changes that affect the moral status of human embryos are identified. The first substance change begins with fertilization and ends with the formation of the blastocyst, a biological (...) individual with moral status comparable to that ascribed to human organs. The second substance change begins at implantation and ends late in embryological development with the formation of the human body, an organism with moral status as a human being. The bioethical implications of each substance change are explored. The Two Substance Change theory is contrasted with continuity theories, which recognize no substance change in embryological development and with fertilization-only substance change theories. (shrink)

Assigning the appropriate moral status to different stages of human development is an urgent problem in bioethics. Many philosophers have attempted to assess developmental events using strict ontological principles to determine when a developing entity becomes essentially human. This approach is not consistent with recent findings in reproductive and stem cell biology, including the discovery of the plasticity of early embryonic development and the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells. Substance ontology should therefore not be used to determine (...) the moral status of the embryo. (shrink)

This overview of 10 years of stem cell controversy reviews the moral conflict that has made ESCs so controversial and how this conflict plays itself out in the legal realm, focusing on the constitutional status of efforts to ban ESC research or ESC-derived therapies. It provides a history of the federal funding debate from the Carter to the Obama administrations, and the importance of the Raab memo in authorizing federal funding for research with privately derived ESCs despite (...) the Dickey-Wicker ban on federal funding of embryo research. It also reviews the role that scientists themselves have played in developing regulations for ESC research, the emergence of ESCROs as special review bodies for ESC research, and the thorough consent requirements for donation of IVF embryos to ESC research. With research now transitioning from the lab to the clinic, the article reviews the challenges of ensuring safety and consent in translational research. It concludes with a call for respecting those persons who have to using or working with ESC products and an account of how obtaining stem cells from a person's own cells will alleviate some but not all of the controversy surrounding ESC research. (shrink)

Cameron and Williamson have provided a provocative and timely review of the ethical questions prompted by the birth of Dolly. The question Cameron and Williamson seek to address is “In the world of Dolly, when does a human embryo acquire respect?”. Their initial discussion sets the scene by providing a valuable overview of attitudes towards the embryo, summarising various religious, scientific, and philosophical viewpoints. They then ask, “What has Dolly changed?” and identify five changes, the first being that (...) fertilisation is no longer required to create an embryo. Following this analysis they then ask when an embryo created other than by fertilisation begins to acquire respect. This paper explores the ethical and legal issues highlighted by Cameron and Williamson’s paper. (shrink)

Embryo rescue cases and minimal miscarriage prevention research have been interpreted as showing that even pro‐lifers are not really committed to the unborn having the same moral status as the born. I will suggest instead that judgments about embryo rescues are often distorted by triage considerations that reveal nothing about differences in moral status between those saved and those not. I will present metaphysical and ethical considerations – none assuming a difference in moral (...) status – why preventing millions of miscarriages does not warrant the massive redistribution of research funds that would occur to prevent the deaths of equal numbers of humans already born. (shrink)

Stem cell-derived embryo models (SCEMs) are model embryos used in scientific research to gain a better understanding of early embryonic development. The way humans develop from a single-cell zygote to a complex multicellular organism remains poorly understood. However, research looking at embryo development is difficult because of restrictions on the use of human embryos in research. Stem cell embryo models could reduce the need for human embryos, allowing us to both understand early development and improve assisted reproductive (...) technologies. There have been several rapid advances in creating SCEMs in recent years. These advances potentially provide a new avenue to study early human development. The benefits of SCEMs are predicated on the claim that they are different from embryos and should, therefore, be exempt from existing regulations that apply to embryos (such as the 14-day rule). SCEMs are proposed as offering a model that can capture the inner workings of the embryo but lack its moral sensitivities. However, the ethical basis for making this distinction has not been clearly explained. In this current controversy, we focus on the ethical justification for treating SCEMs differently to embryos, based on considerations of moral status. (shrink)

Those who oppose human embryonic stem cell research argue for a clear position on the metaphysical and moral status of human embryos. This position does not differ whether the embryo is present inside its mother’s reproductive tract or in a cryopreservation tank. It is worth examining, however, whether an embryo in “suspended animation” has the same status as one actively developing in utero. I will explore this question from the perspective of Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical account (...) of human nature. I conclude that a cryopreserved human embryo counts, both metaphysically and morally, as a person; and thus the utilization of such embryos for inherently destructive research purposes is impermissible. (shrink)

Various debates in bioethics have been focused on whether non-persons, such as marginal humans or non-human animals, deserve respectful treatment. It has been argued that, where we cannot agree on whether these individuals have moral status, we might agree that they have symbolic value and ascribe to them moral value in virtue of their symbolic significance. In the paper I resist the suggestion that symbolic value is relevant to ethical disputes in which the respect for individuals with (...) no intrinsic moral value is in conflict with the interests of individuals with intrinsic moral value. I then turn to moral status and discuss the suitability of personhood as a criterion. There some desiderata for a criterion for moral status: it should be applicable on the basis of our current scientific knowledge; it should have a solid ethical justification; and it should be in line with some of our moral intuitions and social practices. Although it highlights an important connection between the possession of some psychological properties and eligibility for moral status, the criterion of personhood does not meet the desiderata above. I suggest that all intentional systems should be credited with moral status in virtue of having preferences and interests that are relevant to their well-being. (shrink)

Human embryonic moral status in the embryo debate in the Indian religious school of thoughts is a challenging issue. The paper tries to figure out whether ontological status implies moral status of embryo. Consciousness is an important determinant of animation of human embryo. In this paper an attempt had been made to understand the concept of man and soul in the Hindu philosophical thought. In the process we would also make a critical (...) review of embryology in the Hindu philosophical thought. The study would adopt a conceptual elucidation of morality. The paper made an elaborative study of Puruṣa as found in the Saṃkhya Philosophy and the study of consciousness and animation would try to resolve the related question, when does life begin to have that value? Embryo-protectionist regards embryos as a potential person. The Gita says the human person is individual self-called āttmā, whose nature is of pure consciousness, Brahman/Puruṣa. Consciousness constitutes the essentiality of individual Self. Human embryo developments are elaborately studied in the Yajñavalkya Smṛti, Garbha Upaniṣad, and Suśruta Saṃhitā. The self that remain latent in the embryo gets impetus with the association of consciousness until then it cannot be a human personality. In Hinduism sanctity of life gets combined with autonomy and self-determination. The sanctity of life applies both to the fetus as well as to the overall welfare of the society. The embryo being in an interim stage and the soul not being destroyed upon body annihilation, it may be claimed that since destruction or annihilation of the physical form does not destroy the soul, beneficial embryo research should thus not be abhorrent. The Hindu ethics as examined here precludes the consideration of the situation at hand, and causing the least harm and work according to one’s dharma. (shrink)

What moral status should we attribute to stem cells? To answer this neglected question, we look in this essay at the properties of embryos and other entities that could develop into beings who have uncontested moral status, namely, adult humans. Our analysis indicates that those who grant moral status to embryos should also grant it to stem cells. This has implications that verge on absurdity, since even if we were to try to do what (...) we can to protect these entities, we would face the dilemma that the development of any embryo requires the destruction of other potential beings. We respond to objections, including the claim that the destruction of human embryos is wrong not because of the potential of human embryos but because human embryos are actual beings with a rational nature. We conclude that the more plausible position is to deny moral status to embryos, and thus to stem cells as well. (shrink)

오늘날 인간배아의 도덕적 지위 문제는 의생명과학기술의 발전에 힘입어 보다 첨예한 문제로 대두되고 있다. 배아줄기세포 연구는 재생의료의 혁신을 가능하게 했지만 연구와 사용의 과정에서 배아가 파괴될 수밖에 없다는 점에서 윤리적 문제를 제기한다. 배아의 도덕적 지위는 도덕적 지위의 근거를 무엇으로 보느냐에 달려 있다. 이에 우리는 먼저 도덕적 지위의 근거에 대해 지금까지 제시된 몇 가지 대표적인 이론들을 그 핵심적 논리와 각각의 문제점을 확인하는 방식으로 검토했다. 우리는 지금까지 제시된 견해들이 나름의 인간 개념에 기초해 있다는 점에 주목했고, 이 인간 개념(들)이 과연 타당한가를 물었다. 분석의 결과 도덕적 (...) 지위 문제에 접근하는 기존의 인간 개념(들)에 문제가 있음을 깨달았고, 메를로-퐁티의 철학에서 이를 대체할, 인간과 인간 신체를 이해하는 새로운 관점을 발견했다. 메를로-퐁티는 인간을 신체와 의식의 결합물로 파악한 것이 아니라 ‘신체’와 ‘의식’의 구분 이전에 존재하는 통일적 존재로 파악했다. 우리는 인간과 인간 신체에 대한 메를로-퐁티의 분석이 배아의 지위 문제에 대해 어떤 새로운 생각과 근본적인 해결의 실마리를 제공하는지를 밝혔다. 결론부에서 우리는 오늘의 의생명과학기술이 제기하는 문제들에 대해 우리의 분석이 가지는 의의를 논의했다. (shrink)

Suppose a fire broke out in a fertility clinic. One had time to save either a young girl, or a tray of ten human embryos. Would it be wrong to save the girl? According to Michael Sandel, the moral intuition is to save the girl; what is more, one ought to do so, and this demonstrates that human embryos do not possess full personhood, and hence deserve only limited respect and may be killed for medical research. We will argue, (...) however, that no relevant ethical implications can be drawn from the thought experiment. It demonstrates neither that one always ought to let the embryos die, nor does it allow for any general conclusion concerning the moral status of human embryos. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses. By Bonnie Steinbock.

In bioethics as in the sciences, enormous discussions often concern the very small. Central to public debate over emerging reproductive and regenerative biotechnologies is the question of the moral status of the human embryo. Because news media have played a prominent role in framing the vocabulary of the debate, this study surveyed the use of language reporting on human embryo research in news articles spanning a two-year period. Terminology that devalued moral status—for example, (...) the descriptors things, property, tissue, or experimental material —was found to outnumber fivefold those that affirmed any degree of moral status above that of inanimate cellular matter; for example, living, human life, or human being. A quarter of the articles failed to note that the embryos under discussion were human. These findings confirm that even among scientific and philosophical experts a diversity of opinion exists on society's moral obligations to nascent human life. The skewed linguistic distribution also indicates a distinct bias. Concerned readers should take notice when any category of humanity becomes subject to prejudicial and disparaging language and the value of vulnerable human life is trivialized alongside sensational assertions of anticipated medical cures. The responsibility for holding the media to a higher standard of truth and fairness falls to us all. (shrink)

Debates on the moral status of human embryos have been highly and continuously controversial. For many, these controversies have turned into a fruitless scholastical endeavor. However, recent developments and insights in cellular biology have cast further doubt on one of the core points of dissent: the argument from potentiality. In this article we want to show in a nonscholastical way why this argument cannot possibly survive. Getting once more into the intricacies of status debates is a must (...) in our eyes. Not merely intellectual coherence but the standing and self-understanding of current stem cell research might profit from finally taking leave of the argument from potentiality. (shrink)

There are substantial numbers of frozen embryos in storage that will not be used by those who produced them for their own fertility treatment. One option for such embryos is to donate them to others to use in their fertility treatment. There has been considerable debate about how this process should be organized. In the US, there are embryo adoption programmes that mediate between those relinquishing embryos and potential recipients. This is a form of conditional embryo donation, where (...) the relinquishing couple can choose the recipient of their embryo. This article examines the ethical debate over conditional embryo donation for family building and explores the question of whether those who have unused frozen embryos should be able to determine who receives their embryos. The main objections to conditional embryo donation are examined: first, the embryo is not a person and therefore such concern over the placement of an embryo is unwarranted; secondly, potential donors might impose morally problematic conditions on who should receive their embryo; and thirdly, there are practical difficulties regarding organizational arrangements and the associated costs involved. It will be concluded that these objections can be countered and that if people wish to donate and receive embryos in this way there is no ethical objection to them doing so. (shrink)

The author, a member of the U.S.President's Council on Bioethics, discussesethical issues raised by human cloning, whetherfor purposes of bringing babies to birth or forresearch purposes. He first argues that everycloned human embryo is a new, distinct, andenduring organism, belonging to the speciesHomo sapiens, and directing its owndevelopment toward maturity. He then distinguishesbetween two types of capacities belonging toindividual organisms belonging to this species,an immediately exerciseable capacity and abasic natural capacity that develops over time. He argues that it (...) is the second type ofcapacity that is the ground for full moralrespect, and that this capacity (and itsconcomitant degree of respect) belongs tocloned human embryos no less than to adulthuman beings. He then considers and rejectscounter-arguments to his position, includingthe suggestion that the capacity of embryos isequivalent to the capacity of somatic cells,that full human rights are afforded only tohuman organisms with functioning brains, thatthe possibility of twinning diminishes themoral status of embryos, that the fact thatpeople do not typically mourn the loss of earlyembryos implies that they have a diminishedmoral status, that the fact that earlyspontaneous abortions occur frequentlydiminishes the moral status of embryos, andthat his arguments depend upon a concept ofensoulment. He concludes that if the moralstatus of cloned human embryos is equivalent tothat of adults, then public policy should bebased upon this assumption. (shrink)

: Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to save many lives, must be recovered from aborted fetuses or live embryos. Although tissue from aborted fetuses can be used without moral complicity in the underlying abortion, obtaining stem cells from embryos necessarily kills them, thus raising difficult questions about the use of embryonic human material to save others. This article draws on previous controversies over embryo research and distinctions between intrinsic and symbolic moral status to (...) analyze these issues. It argues that stem cell research with spare embryos produced during infertility treatment, or even embryos created specifically for research or therapeutic purposes, is ethically acceptable and should receive federal funding. (shrink)

New developments in reproductive technology have made headlines since the birth of the world's first in vitro fertilization baby in 1978. But is embryo experimentation ethically acceptable? What is the moral status of the early human embryo? And how should a democratic society deal with so controversial an issue, where conflicting views are based on differing religious and philosophical positions? These controversial questions are the subject of this book, which, as a current compendium of ideas and (...) arguments on the subject, makes an original contribution of major importance to this debate. (shrink)

Research ethics committees must sometimes deliberate about objects that do not fit nicely into any existing category. This is currently the case with the “gastruloid,” which is a self-assembling blob of cells that resembles a human embryo. The resemblance makes it tempting to group it with other members of that kind, and thus to ask whether gastruloids really are embryos. But fitting an ambiguous object into an existing category with well-worn pathways in research ethics, like the embryo, is (...) only a temporary fix. The bigger problem is that we no longer know what an embryo is. We haven’t had a non-absurd definition of ‘embryo’ for several decades and without a well-defined comparison class, asking whether gastruloids belong to the morally relevant class of things we call embryos is to ask a question without an answer. What’s the alternative? A better approach needs to avoid what I’ll refer to as “the potentiality trap” and, instead, rely on the emergence of morally salient facts about gastruloids and other synthetic embryos. (shrink)