Recent scientific advances have indicated that it may be technically feasible to sustain human embryos in vitro beyond 14 days. Research beyond this stage is currently restricted by a guideline known as the 14-day rule. Since the advances in embryo culturing there have been calls to extend the current limit. Much of the current debate concerning an extension has regarded the 14-day rule as a political compromise and has, therefore, focused on policy concerns rather than assessing the philosophical foundations (...) of the limit. While there are relevant political considerations, I maintain that the success of extension arguments will ultimately depend on the strength of the justifications supporting the current 14-day limit. I argue that the strongest and most prevalent justifications for the 14-day rule—an appeal to individuation and neural development—do not provide adequate support for the limit of 14 days. I instead suggest that an alternative justification based on sentience would constitute a more defensible basis for embryo protection and that a consideration of such grounds appears to support an amendment to the current limit, rather than the retention of it. While these conclusions do not establish conclusively that the current limit should be extended; they do suggest that an extension may be warranted and permissible. As such, this paper offers grounds on which a reassessment of the 14-day rule may be justified. (shrink)

This paper is based on linked qualitative studies of the donation of human embryos to stem cell research carried out in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and China. All three studies used semi-structured interview protocols to allow an in-depth examination of donors’ and non-donors’ rationales for their donation decisions, with the aim of gaining information on contextual and other factors that play a role in donor decisions and identifying how these relate to factors that are more usually included in evaluations made (...) by theoretical ethics. Our findings have implications for one factor that has previously been suggested as being of ethical concern: the role of gratitude. Our empirical work shows no evidence that interpersonal gratitude is an important factor, but it does support the existence of a solidarity-based desire to “give something back” to medical research. Thus, we use empirical data to expand and refine the conceptual basis of bioethically theorizing the IVF–stem cell interface. (shrink)

Rob Lovering has developed an interesting new critique of views that regard embryos as equally valuable as other human beings: the moral argument for frozen human embryo adoption. The argument is aimed at those who believe that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, and Lovering concludes that some who hold this view ought to prevent one of these deaths by adopting and gestating a frozen embryo. Contra Lovering, we show that there are (...) far more effective strategies for preserving the lives of frozen embryos than adoption. Moreover, we point out that those who regard the deaths of frozen embryos as a very bad thing will generally regard the deaths of all embryos as a very bad thing, whether they are discarded embryos, aborted embryos or embryos that spontaneously abort. This entails these other embryos must be taken into account when considering moral obligations, as well as other human lives at risk from preventable causes. (shrink)

Ethically sound analyses of embryo genetic editing require more than simple assessments of safety considerations. After all, we as humans care deeply not only about our health, but also care profoundly about the kinds of societies we construct, the injustices that our actions produce, the responsibilities that we have toward others and ourselves, our self-understanding, the characters that we develop, our family relationships, and the world that we leave to our children and grandchildren.

I defend the argument that if embryo loss in stem cell research is morally problematic, then embryo loss in in vivo conception is similarly morally problematic. According to a recent challenge to this argument, we can distinguish between in vivo embryo loss and the in vitro embryo loss of stem cell research by appealing to the doctrine of double effect. I argue that this challenge fails to show that in vivo embryo loss is a mere (...) unintended side effect while in vitro embryo loss is an intended means and that, even if we refine the challenge by appealing to Michael Bratman's three roles of intention, the distinction is still unwarranted. (shrink)

The main objection to human embryonic stem cell research is that it involves killing human embryos, which are essentially beings of the same sort that you and I are. This objection presupposes that we once existed as early embryos and that we had the same moral status then that we have now. This essay challenges both those presuppositions, but focuses primarily on the first. I argue first that these presuppositions are incompatible with widely accepted beliefs about both assisted conception and (...) monozygotic twinning. I then argue that we never existed as embryos. If this last claim is right, killing an embryo does not kill someone like you or me but merely prevents one of us from existing. (shrink)

The recent publications reported in 2022 reveal the possibility of obtaining mouse embryos without the need for egg or sperm. These ‘artificial embryos’ can recapitulate some stages of development ex utero – from neurulation to organogenesis – without implantation. Synthetic mouse embryos might serve as a valuable model to gain further insights into early developmental stages. Indeed, it is expected for these models to be replicated by employing human cells. This promising research raises ethical issues and expands the horizon of (...) ethics in regard to the development of the human embryo. From this point of view, we state some of the new open venues for bioethical research. (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 debate regarding the moral status of human embryos, the Embryo Rescue Case has been used to suggest that embryos are not rightholders. This case is premised on the idea that in a situation where one has a choice between saving some number of embryos or a child, it seems wrong to save the embryos and not the child. If so, it seems that embryos cannot be rightholders. In this paper, I argue that the Embryo Rescue Case (...) does not independently show that embryos are not rightholders. (shrink)

Iran is the only Muslim country that has legislation on embryo donation, adopted in 2003. With an estimated 10–15% of couples in the country that are infertile, there are not any legal or religious barriers that prohibit an infertile couple from taking advantage of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs). Although all forms of ARTs available in Iran have been legitimized by religious authorities, there is a lack of legislation in all ARTs except embryo donation. By highlighting ethical issues in (...) embryo donation, the paper presents a critical review of the Act of Embryo Donation in Iran. The paper argues that the Act does not provide enough safeguards for the future child and assurance for the safety of the donated embryos. It also does not restrict embryo donation to surplus embryos from infertile couples and is silent about the number of embryos that could be donated by each couple as well as the number of recipients for donated embryos by a couple. The Act is also silent about the issues of genetic linkage (nasab) and heritage which are challenging issues, especially in a conservative Islamic society. As a result, the future child may not inherit from their birth parents, as it is not required by the Act, or from the genetically related parents under the anonymity policy. Finally there is no standard national protocol or guidelines to evaluate the safety of the donated embryos. The paper concludes that despite its benefits, the Act lacks clarity, and it is subject to misunderstanding and confusion. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical discussion on human embryonic stem cell research has focused primarily on the metaphysical and meta-ethical issues suchresearch raises. Though these discussions are interesting, largely ignored are arguments rooted in the secular research ethics tradition already informing humansubject research. This tradition countenances the notion of vulnerability and that vulnerable human subjects (of which human embryos are likely members)ought to be protected from research-related harms. This is the basic idea behind the argument from vulnerability, and it enjoys prima facie plausibility. (...) This articlepresents the vulnerability argument and then focuses critically on several lines of attack including: (1) twinning and totipotency arguments, (2) embryo-rescuearguments, and (3) natural loss arguments. The article concludes that there is no good defeater for the vulnerability argument, and, therefore, we have undefeated reasons for protecting human embryos from research related harms. (shrink)

On both sides of the debate on the use of embryos in stem cell research, and in reproductive technologies more generally, rhetoric and symbolic images have been evoked to influence public opinion. Human embryos themselves are described as either “very small human beings” or “small clusters of cells.” The intentions behind the use of these phrases are clear. One description suggests that embryos are already members of our community and share with us a right to life or at least respectful (...) treatment, whereas the other focuses on the differences between embryos and adult human beings with normal capacities, that is, their lack of sentience and of personal identity. The research on stem cells has been nicknamed “Frankenstein science” or presented as “research that could stop Parkinson disease.” Again, one description reminds us of scary science-fiction scenarios where the scientist is guilty of “playing God,” whereas the other description highlights the worth and potential benefits of the research outcomes. (shrink)

Are embryos deserving of moral consideration in our actions? A standard view suggests that embryos are considerable only if they have interests. One argument for embryonic interests contends that embryos are harmed by death because they are deprived of valuable future lives as adult persons. Some have challenged this argument on the grounds that embryos aren’t identical to adults: either due to the potential for embryos to twin or because we do not exist until the fetus develops consciousness. These arguments (...) fail to show that embryos do not have future adult lives. There is a better reason to think that embryos cannot have interests; namely, because they are not capable of having desires. Others have held this view but have not sufficiently justified it. The justification lies in the fact that the capacity for desires is necessary to make sense of the normativity of interests. (shrink)

The “Embryo Rescue Case” (ERC) refers to a thought experiment that is used to argue against the view that embryos have a right to life (i.e. are persons). I will argue that cognitive science undermines the intuition elicited by the ERC; I will show that whether or not embryos have a right to life, our mental tools will make it very difficult to believe that embryos have said right. This suggests that the intuition elicited by the ERC is not (...) truth indicative. The upshot of this is that we have an undercutting defeater for our intuition that embryos do not have a right to life. (shrink)

The founding of the Carnegie Institute’s Department of Embryology in 1913, alongside its systematization of embryo staging, contributed to the mechanization of developmental stages of embryo growth in the early 20th century. For a brief period in the middle of the century, attention to the detailed interrelation between embryo development and time made pre-existing ideas about pregnancy ends less determinative of ideas about that developmental course. However, the turn to the genetic scale led to the disappearance of (...) this attention, replaced by a sense of biological life as seamlessly scripted. This study examines the history of what I refer to as temporal attention: attention to the live, unfolding potentialities within vital matter. The reintroduction of temporal attention to discussions of development allows us to more fully consider non-human vitality and the experiences of beings that house or otherwise intimately intersect with that vital tissue, regardless of outcomes. (shrink)

The emergence of ethical controversy -- First embryo research regimes -- The ethics of embryonic stem cell research -- Stem cell and cloning politics.

Several states have recently adopted more restrictive abortion policies yet permit fertility clinics to create surplus IVF embryos. This essay examines this issue: Is it morally inconsistent to prohibit abortion yet permit surplus embryos to be used in fertility medicine? I consider various arguments that try to reconcile this tension. None succeed. Either one holds that embryos have full moral status, and opposes both abortion and surplus embryos, or one denies that embryos have full moral status, which would permit surplus (...) embryos to be used but would entail that some abortions should be permissible as well. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to explore the Buddhist position particularly within the Mahāyāna sect about the use of human embryos which may be either surplus embryos thawedinthe laboratoryorembryosculturedfor researchpurposes.Buddhismdoesnot give prominence to any supreme creation whose plan might be distorted by human intervention with nature. Buddhism postulates the cyclic course of human existence as eternal. There is no starting point to the series of lives lived and obviously there is no end. In the Buddhist thought, there is a (...) belief that every individual had existence prior to the present birth. Following this, the paper made a study of the details of the conception and gestation as found in the Buddhist literature and sources. Buddhism aims to do away with pain. Intention is an intrinsic aspect in Buddhism referred to as sankalpa, which is beyond mere goals and objectives. An action is deemed as good karma because of its intentions. To Buddhism, a selfless action gains significance. (shrink)

A central question in the ethical debate on the practice of relinquishing in vitro fertilization surplus embryos for family building is whether we ought to think of it more in terms of donating these embryos or in terms of having them adopted. Deciding between these two alternatives is more than a matter of mere terminology. It has an impact on normative questions, e.g., on the question of what criteria for parent selection ought to be applied to the recipients of the (...) embryos, and on the moral evaluation of the act of ‘donating’ the embryo or ‘having it adopted’. In this article, I defend the view that we should conceptualize the relinquishment of spare embryos according to the adoption model, not as a donation. Section 2 sketches the outline of the argument by making clear how we may ground a defense of the adoption model in a theory of parental responsibility without implicitly elevating the moral status of the embryo. Section 3 contains a preliminary defense of the adoption model that draws on geneticism as what seems to me the most persuasive theory of parental responsibility. In section 4, I examine three objections to geneticism and either rebut them or, insofar as they are justified, try to accommodate them into my view. In section 5, I point out some features that distinguish embryo adoption from the adoption of (born) children. I contend, however, that these differences are compatible with the adoption model. Section 6 is concerned with the normative ramifications of this view. (shrink)

The debate concerning the moral permissibility of using human embryos in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research has long centred on the question of the embryo's supposed right to life. However, in focussing only on this question, many opponents to hESC research have escaped rigorous scrutiny by making vague and unfounded appeals to the concept of moral respect in order to justify their opposition to certain hESC practices. In this paper, I offer a critical analysis of the concept of (...) moral respect, and its use to support the intuitively appealing principle of proportionality in hESC research. I argue that if proponents of this principle are to justify its adoption by appealing to the concept of moral respect, they must explain two things concerning the nature of the moral respect owed to embryos. First, they must explain which particular aspect of the embryo is morally relevant, and why. Second, they must explain why some uses of embryos in research fail to acknowledge what is morally relevant about the embryo, and thereby involve a violation of the moral respect that they are due. I shall show that providing such explanations may be more difficult than it first appears. (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)

The use of genome embryo editing tools in reproduction is often touted as a way to ensure the birth of healthy and genetically related children. Many would agree that this is a worthy goal. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, if we are concerned with justice, accepting such goal as morally appropriate commits one to rejecting the development of embryo editing for reproductive purposes. This is so because safer and more effective means exist that can (...) allow many more prospective parents to achieve the same valued goal and that offer additional benefits. (shrink)

Abortion and embryo destruction prevent a future of value, but that does not make them wrong.Abortion involves the killing of a fetus. One bad thing about killing a fetus is that the fetus is deprived of a future of value. Think of all the things which make your life good and worth living: understanding the world, seeing your children grow into independent, intelligent, and happy people, watching a sunset over the hills, enjoying good times with friends. By killing the (...) fetus, we are depriving it of a future life likely to contain these things. And more. The fetus would likely grow to be a person who would have contributed to the world in many ways—bringing joy to its parents, happiness, and friendship to many. That person would have laboured for society and perhaps even discovered a cure for cancer or developed the first bionic eye.The loss of these possible futures is bad. It makes the killing of a fetus wrong. This is Don Marquis's argument against abortion.1 It is one of the best arguments against abortion which does not rest on theological premises.Another way of putting this is to say that we have a good reason not to kill a fetus. A reason for acting is a fact or circumstance forming a sufficient justification for an action. Or in this case, not to perform an action. We have all sorts of reasons for action. Our reasons often conflict. I may have a good reason to visit my mother and a good reason to take my children to the park. What we have most reason to do is what it is right to do. It is what we should do. If we have most reason not to perform an act, …. (shrink)

Research on the human embryo is one of the most obstinately controversial issues of international bioethical debate. There has not been enough of a consensus on this issue to allow for more than a formal compromise within Europe. I argue in this paper for a pragmatic approach to the problem which accords priority to "want-regarding" considerations but does not fail, as most utilitarian approaches do, to give due weight to the "morality-dependent harms" caused by the practice of embryo (...) research to those rejecting it from other than want-regarding principles. I suggest that in deeply controversial bioethical issues a consistent want-regarding perspective should be prepared, under certain narrow conditions, to make pragmatic tradeoffs between the inherent merits of the practice in question and the averse emotions of the public. These conditions are that the averse emotions are widespread, felt to be of existential importance, and stable under additional information, and that the costs in terms of reduced freedom and foregone humane progress do not seem excessive. (shrink)

In this paper I will address whether the restriction on the creation of human embryos solely for the purpose of research in which they will be used and destroyed in the creation of human stem cell lines is ethically justified. Of course, a cynical but perhaps accurate reading of the new Obama policy is that leaving this restriction in place was done for political, not ethical, reasons, in light of the apparent public opposition to creating embryos for use in this (...) research. But the issue of whether the restriction is ethically justified remains important, even if only for another day in the policy arena. (shrink)

One strategy for arguing that it should be legally permissible to create human embryos, or to use of spare human embryos, for scientific research purposes involves the claim that such embryos cannot be persons because they are not human individuals while twinning may yet take place. Being a human individual is considered to be by most people a necessary condition for being a human person. I argue first that such an argument against the personhood of embryos must be rationally conclusive (...) if their destruction in public places such as laboratories is to be countenanced. I base this argument on a popular understanding of the role that the notion of privacy plays in abortion law. I then argue that such arguments against personhood are not rationally conclusive. The claim that the early embryos is not a human individual is not nearly as obvious as some assert. (shrink)

Embryo adoption is an act of artificial impregnation. Artificial impregnation is analogous to artificial insemination. The conditions under which artificial impregnation is ethically acceptable may therefore be the same as the conditions under which artificial insemination is ethically acceptable. But artificial insemination is ethically acceptable only when it assists conjugal union to attain its natural purpose. If artificial impregnation is likewise ethically acceptable only insofar as it assists and does not replace conjugal union, then the presence or absence of (...) the conjugal act itself is the fundamental moral criterion by which to judge whether to permit or exclude artificial impregnation. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 111–122. (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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 551 Human Embryo Research: Yes or No?. By CIBA FOUNDATION. London: Tavistock: 1987. Pp. xv + 232. $39.95 (cloth). In 1984 a governmental commission formed under the directorship of Dame Mary Warnock studied proposed legislation for experimentation on human embryos for research purposes. It concluded that such experimentation should not be permitted ·after the fourteenth day of gestation. This book records a symposium conducted under the (...) sponsorship of the CIBA foundation, an international scientific and educational organization which promotes research into biomedical and chemical research. The purpose of the symposium was to determine whether the guidelines set forth by the Warnock commission were legitimate and whether new criteria for allowing embryo r.esearch should be established. The book consists of eleven papers presented at a symposium on the ethics of embryo research along with panel discussions about the papers. Technically, embryo research only concerns experimentation with human products of conception after the fourteenth gestational day. The first seven papers describe contemporary embryo research dealing with the diagnosis and mechanisms of infertility, its ti;eatment by in vitro fertilization, the diagnosis of genetic disease, the causes and avoidance of congenital malformations, and the improvement of contraception. The final four papers deal with the issues of the status of the human embryo in d:ffierent world religions, the moral arguments against human embryo research, and public attitudes on human embryo research. The scientific papers are quite detailed, and they provided a good deal of information about the contemporary state of embryo research. But the papers on the ethics of human embryo research are rather partisan, and they do not adequately approach the difficult human and ethical issues involved in embryo research. One gains the impression from this book that the conference was heavily weighted in favor of those who sought virtually unqualified and unrestricted moral and legal permission for human.embryo research. The scientific papers seemed to go out of their way to argue that there was an unbreakable continuum in the process of transmitting life such that it could not be determined when human life began. For example, Professor Teresa Iglesias's suggestion that a new and distinct human life began when the process of fertilization began, and when the newly formed genetic material came to govern the development of the organism, rceeived little acknowledgment. No papers were presented rejecting nontherapeutic research on human embryos, and.the papers presented by J. W. Bowker and by Bernard Williams argued in behalf of the moral licitness of unspecified forms of embryo research. Bowker claimed that there was no consensus to be found 55~ BOOK REVIEWS among the various world religions on the moral status of the human embryo. He surveyed various religions such as Buddhism and concluded that the arguments in favor of the humanity or personhood of the embryo were not strong or persuasive. His point should not be accepted without caution, however, for he did not consider the claims made by western traditions such as Catholicism in behalf of the personhood of the embryo. 'F:or the claims of an oriental religion such as Buddhism are not as persuasive with Western, rationalist, liberal minds as they are with orientals. Bowker argues that religious claims about the personhood of the unborn ';are weak since we do not claim that larvae are full grown fish or that acorns are oak trees. This is true, but on the other hand, we do not say that horse embryos are vegteables or pigs. Implied in Bowker's claim that the embryo is not a human being or a human person is the assumption that at some point in the gestation process the embryo undergoes a "species-transfer" or "class-transfer" from the biological category of non-human or non-personal to human and personal. This is difficult to accept as there is no precedent in other mammals for such a species or class transfer. Equine, bovine, and canine embryos are not considered to be anything than other than of the species of horse, pig, or dog, and there is no reason to believe that they engage in some sort of species transfer. And he does not explain why the human case alone exhibits this... (shrink)

There is, as some public figures have asserted, a real moral difference between creating embryos expressly for medical research and conducting research on embryos that are left over from infertility treatments. To create an embryo intending all along to destroy it is worse. But in the end, it isn't so much worse that we should ban all nonreproductive cloning.

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)

In their recent paper in this journal, Zümrüt Alpinar-Şencan and colleagues review existing dignity-based objections to organ markets and outline a new form of dignity-based objection they believe has more merit: one grounded in a social account of dignity. This commentary clarifies some aspects of the social account of dignity and then shows how this revised account can be applied to other perennial issues in bioethics, including the ethics of human embryo research and the ethics of creating part-human chimeras.

At a time when bioethical issues are at the top of public and political agendas, there is a renewed interest in representations of the embryo in various religious traditions. One of the major traditions that have contributed to Western representations of the embryo is the Jewish tradition. This tradition poses some difficulties that may deter scholars, but also presents some invaluable advantages. These derive from two components, the search for limits and narrativity, both of which are directly connected (...) with the manner in which Jewish tradition was constructed in Antiquity. The article accomplishes three goals: • To introduce some central elements in ancient Rabbinic literature on the subject of the embryo and its representation; • To present this body of literature as clearly as possible, noting some of the difficulties encountered by scholars who engage in its study; • To explain how the literature’s textuality came about, examining the particular sociopolitical circumstances of Judaism at that time, including the reasons for the delay in the production of scientific texts, transmitted as such, as compared to other philosophical or religious traditions. The claim is that these circumstances engendered a tradition peculiarly relevant for the study and teaching of medical ethics today. (shrink)

What makes something an embryo—as opposed to what is actually, and not just in biotech parlance, a collection of cells? This question has come to the fore in recent years with proposals for producing embryonic stem cells for research. While some of those opposed to use of standard embryonic stem cells emphasise that adult cells have a clinical track record, others argue that there may be further benefits obtainable from cells very like those of embryos, provided such cells can (...) be derived in new ways. Rather than deriving them in ways that kill or otherwise endanger a living human embryo, they could be obtained from an entity that merely resembles a human embryo sufficiently closely for its cells to be of use. Such an entity might be created after introducing genetic changes to an ovum before it is activated by, for example, a cloning-type procedure, such that a gene essential to embryogenesis will be either absent, blocked in its expression, or overexpressed.1,2 The claim is that the ovum could be made to give rise to embryonic stem cells—mere living parts—without ever giving rise to a whole embryo, who is killed to obtain them. Whereas cloning “proper” winds back the specialisation of the cell nucleus to a point where a whole embryo is formed who has not yet specialised its cells, oocyte-assisted reprogramming , it is claimed, would wind back the specialisation merely to an intermediate point at which no embryo is created. Other methods proposed for deriving pseudoembryonic cells include parthenogenesis, in which an ovum is activated without a sperm, or even the insertion of an adult cell nucleus.1MORAL STATUS OF THE EMBRYOIn this paper, I assume that a genuine …. (shrink)

Recent ethical and legal challenges have arisen concerning the rights of individuals over their IVF embryos, leading to questions about how, when the wishes of parents regarding their embryos conflict, such situations ought to be resolved. A notion commonly invoked in relation to frozen embryo disputes is that of reproductive rights: a right to have (or not to have) children. This has sometimes been interpreted to mean a right to have, or not to have, one's own genetic children. But (...) can such rights legitimately be asserted to give rise to claims over embryos? We examine the question of property in genetic material as applied to gametes and embryos, and whether rights over genetic information extend to grant control over IVF embryos. In particular we consider the purported right not to have one's own genetically related children from a property-based perspective. We argue that even if we concede that such (property) rights do exist, those rights become limited in scope and application upon engaging in reproduction. We want to show that once an IVF embryo is created for the purpose of reproduction, any right not to have genetically-related children that may be based in property rights over genetic information is ceded. There is thus no right to prevent one's IVF embryos from being brought to birth on the basis of a right to avoid having one's own genetic children. Although there may be reproductive rights over gametes and embryos, these are not grounded in genetic information. (shrink)

The proposal for reproducing human generations in vitro raises the question to what extent parenthood is possible in embryos and to what extent human rights and interests are dependent on conscious awareness. This paper argues that the interest in not being made a parent non-consensually for the benefit of others persists throughout the lifespan of the individual human organism. We do not become genetic parents by learning that we are parents; rather, we discover (or fail to discover) an existing genetic (...) relationship between our offspring and ourselves. The claim to genetic parenthood of an embryo used for reproduction in vitro is, if anything, clearer than the claim of the adult for whom gametes are derived via ips cells, in that an embryo’s cells, unlike an adult’s somatic cells, are already functionally geared to producing gametes (among other types of cell). An embryo used to make gametes that are used in reproduction is immediately and non-consensually made a genetic parent and to that extent is wronged whether or not the parent embryo survives – as some could survive – the harvesting of cells. All human individuals carry objective interests in benefits appropriate to the kind of being they are; these include the stake in not being made a parent without one’s consent, whether posthumously or otherwise. (shrink)

The notion of the human embryo is not immutable. Various scientific and technological breakthroughs in reproductive biology have compelled us to revisit the definition of the human embryo during the past 2 decades. Somatic cell nuclear transfer, oocyte haploidisation and, more recently, human stem cell-derived embryo models have challenged this scientific term, which has both ethical and legal repercussions. Here, we offer a legal perspective to identify a universally accepted definition of ‘embryo’ which could help to (...) ease and unify the regulation of such entities in different countries. (shrink)

With the recent advent of systems biology, developmental biology is taking a new turn. Attempts to create a ‘digital embryo’ are prominent among systems approaches. At the heart of these systems-based endeavours, variously described as ‘in vivoimaging’, ‘live imaging’ or ‘in totorepresentation’, are visualization techniques that allow researchers to image whole, live embryos at cellular resolution over time. Ultimately, the aim of the visualizations is to build a computer model of embryogenesis. This article examines the role of such visualization (...) techniques in the building of a computational model, focusing, in particular, on the cinematographic character of these representations. It asks how the animated representation of development may change the biological understanding of embryogenesis. By situating the animations of the digital embryo within the iconography of developmental biology, it brings to light the inextricably entwined, yet shifting, borders between the animated, the living and the computational. (shrink)

As increasing numbers of infertility clinics in the U.S. offer embryo freezing as part of their IVF protocols, public debate on its ethical implications has calmed. Yet in clinical settings, unanswered questions suggest the need to keep alive the ethical debate about the benefits to patients and society of embryo freezing.

Some stem cell researchers believe that it is easier to derive human embryonic stem cells from fresh rather than frozen embryos and they have had in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinicians invite their infertility patients to donate their fresh embryos for research use. These embryos include those that are deemed 'suitable for transfer' (i.e. to the woman's uterus) and those deemed unsuitable in this regard. This paper focuses on fresh embryos deemed suitable for transfer - hereafter 'fresh embryos'- which IVF patients (...) have good reason not to donate. We explain why donating them to research is not in the self-interests specifically of female IVF patients. Next, we consider the other-regarding interests of these patients and conclude that while fresh embryo donation may serve those interests, it does so at unnecessary cost to patients' self-interests. Lastly, we review some of the potential barriers to the autonomous donation of fresh embryos to research and highlight the risk that female IVF patients invited to donate these embryos will misunderstand key aspects of the donation decision, be coerced to donate, or be exploited in the consent process. On the basis of our analysis, we conclude that patients should not be asked to donate their fresh embryos to stem cell research. (shrink)

Three basic political positions on embryo research will be identified as libertarian, conservative, and social-democratic. The Human Embryo Research Panel will be regarded as an expression of the social-democratic position. A taxonomy of the ethical issues addressed by the Panel will then be developed at the juncture of political and ethical modes of reflection. Among the arguments considered will be those for the separability of the abortion and embryo research debates; arguments against the possibility of the preembryo (...) being a person, especially arguments associated with totipotency and the significance of the primitive streak; and the various reasons for regulating embryo research, including those associated with respect for the preembryo, the protection of traditional views of human procreation, and the prevention of commercialization. (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)

Mithilfe der Verfahren des Embryo-Splittings werden unter Laborbedingungen aus einem Embryo mehrere, genetisch identische Embryonen gewonnen. Gegenwärtig wird in Fachbeiträgen debattiert, die in der Nutztierzucht etablierten Verfahren auf die humane Reproduktionsmedizin auszuweiten. Eine solche Anwendung wird derzeit flächendeckend als reproduktives Klonen verstanden und ist in allen Staaten per Gesetz oder Richtlinie untersagt. Bei der Prüfung ausgewählter Einwände gegen die prinzipielle Zulässigkeit einer Anwendung des Embryo-Splittings als assistierter Reproduktionstechnologie zeigt sich, dass sich die Einwände gegen das reproduktive Klonen (...) nicht auf den Fall des Splittings übertragen lassen. Insbesondere liegt dem Splitting nicht die ‚narzisstische‘ Replikation des Genoms einer bereits lebenden Person zugrunde. Die Gleichsetzung mit anderen Formen des reproduktiven Klonens verdeckt darüber hinaus eigene regulative Fragen zum Umgang mit gesplitteten Embryonen, die hinsichtlich einer potenziellen klinischen Anwendung adressiert werden müssen. Schließlich wird deutlich, dass die Maßgabe, Embryonen zu schützen, bisher einseitig als ausreichender Grund für eine restriktive Regulierung des Splittings herangezogen wurde. Diese Argumentation erweist sich in einer pluralistischen Gesellschaft jedoch als unzureichend. (shrink)

John Harris gives a comprehensive and generally valid defense of embryo research. Although nearly all his arguments are valid, one—the argument comparing natural reproduction to embryo research—is problematic in several important ways. I focus here on that argument.

Google Earth allows us to obtain a new vision of the planet we live on, with an ability to zoom in from space to ground level detail at any point on Earth. As it is only recently that we have been able to look toward the Earth from space, we review instead the history of imaging of the Jupiter moon Ganymede, another globe, first seen by Galileo. Observations of Ganymede are mined for lessons on the importance and impact of improving (...) imaging technology. Similarly, new insights may await us when we have proper tools for quantitatively looking at another unexplored globe, the embryo, in a sense for the first time. (shrink)

The majority of embryos created in natural reproduction die spontaneously within a few weeks of conception. Some have argued that, therefore, if one believes the embryo is a person (in the normative sense) one should find ‘natural’ reproduction morally problematic. An extension of this argument holds that, if one accepts embryo deaths in natural reproduction, consistency requires that one also accepts embryo deaths that occur in (i) assisted reproduction via in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and (ii) embryo (...) research. In a recent paper in this journal, Timothy Murphy criticises both the initial argument and its extension. Murphy argues that double-effect reasoning can justify embryo deaths both in natural reproduction and IVF, but not in embryo research. Thus, according to Murphy, one can, without being inconsistent, (1) believe the embryo is a person and accept natural reproduction and IVF, and (2) accept natural reproduction and IVF, while rejecting embryo research on the ground that it involves embryo deaths. I show that Murphy's argument is problematic because double effect cannot justify embryo deaths in standard IVF practices. The problem is that the proportionality criterion of double effect is not met by such practices. Thus, Murphy's argument fails to support (1) and (2). An implication of his argument failing to support (2) is that it does not defeat the position I have defended in the past—that if one accepts standard IVF practices one should also accept embryo research, including research with embryos created solely for that purpose. (shrink)

Complete moral consensus on the status of the human embryo is neither feasible nor necessary for the formulation of ethically acceptable public policy for human embryo research. Significant consensus on permissible human embryo research can rest upon diverse but overlapping moral traditions. Thus, human embryo research policy should do more than reflect mere abstract assertions about the moral status of human embryos. Rather, the moral underpinnings of human embryo research should be derived from a range (...) of values, including the facilitation of human procreation, the advancement of applied scientific knowledge, the reduction of human suffering, and the protection of vulnerable persons from coercion and exploitation. (shrink)

The paper by Savulescu et al is timely and the concepts illuminated deserve further reflection.1 Reproductive tissue which includes sperm, oocytes and embryos are commonly treated differently to other human tissue, even when the reproductive potential of these has no possibility of being realised. This unnecessary exceptionalism hampers research in human reproduction, disadvantaging patients and delaying life-changing treatments from being incorporated into clinical practice. In jurisdictions where embryo creation is permitted for clinical purposes, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), (...) supernumerary embryos are routinely discarded once they are no longer required to attempt pregnancy. We contend that research on such embryos, which will never realise their reproductive potential, is not substantially different to any other human tissue research and should not require any additional ethical or regulatory oversight. The only individuals who can possibly be harmed by such research are the tissue providers and their interests, including confidentiality and informed consent provision, should be protected. This protection once again is no different in its scope to any other type of research involving human cells and tissues. Most Western societies have moved away from the concept that ‘every sperm is sacred’ and it is time that the regulators and scientific community aligned with the prevailing communal norms and stop treating gametes and embryos as somehow holding higher moral value, compared with other human cell/tissue lines, provided that there is no intention to attempt a pregnancy …. (shrink)

Genetic relatedness poses significant challenges to traditional practices of medical ethics as concerns the biobanking of human biological samples. In this paper, we first outline the ethical challenges to informed consent and confidentiality as these apply to human biobanks, irrespective of the type of tissue being stored. We argue that the shared nature of genetic information has clear implications for informed consent, and the identifying nature of biological samples and information has clear implications for promises of confidentiality. Next, with regard (...) to the special case of biobanking human embryos and eggs, we consider issues arising from: first, the type of tissues being stored; second, the use to which these tissues are put; and third, how this plays out given the shared and identifying nature of these tissues. Specifically, we examine the differences between human bodily tissues and human reproductive tissues focusing on the assumed potential of the reproductive tissues and on the possible greater emotional attachment to these tissues because of their real and imagined kinship. For some donors there may be a sense of family connection with embryos and eggs they once thought of as ‘children-in-waiting’. Finally, we conclude by considering the implications for ethical practice. (shrink)