Stem cell research: an ethical evaluation of policy options

In February 2004, South Korean researchers became the first in the world to successfully harvest stem cells and establish a stem cell line from a cloned human embryo. This is just one of eight possible policy options concerning human embryonic stem cell research. In practice, every kind of stem cell research can be done in one country or another. This paper evaluates the eight policy options concerning human embryonic stem cell research in light of the arguments and decisions behind them.     

Stumbling on status: Abortion, stem cells, and faulty reasoning

Common arguments from the abortion debate have set the stage for the debate on stem cell research. Unfortunately, those arguments demonstrate flawed reasoning—jumping to unfounded conclusions, using value laden language rather than careful argument, and ignoring morally relevant aspects of the situation. The influence of flawed abortion arguments on the stem cell debate results in failures of moral reasoning and in lack of attention to important morally relevant differences between abortion and human embryonic stem cells. Among those differences are whose interests are at stake and the difference between an embryo in and out of the womb. Stem cell research differs from abortion in morally relevant ways and should be freed from the abortion debate and its flawed reasoning.     

Preembryo Personhood: An Assessment of the President’s Council Arguments

The President’s Council on Bioethics has addressed the moral status of human preembryos in its reports on stem cell research and human therapeutic cloning. Although the Council has been criticized for being hand-picked to favor the right-to-life viewpoint concerning human preembryos, it has embraced the idea that the right-to-life position should be defended in secular terms. This is an important feature of the Council’s work, and it demonstrates a recognition of the need for genuine engagement between opposing sides in the debate over stem cell research. To promote this engagement, the Council has stated in secular terms several arguments for the personhood of human preembryos. This essay presents and critiques those arguments, and it concludes that they are unsuccessful. If the best arguments in support of the personhood of human preembryos have been presented by the Council, then there are no reasonable secular arguments in support of that view.     

Human embryonic stem cell therapy

The author presents an overview (completed on September 15, 2001) of three issues involved in the ethics of human embryonic stem cell therapy: the ethical implications of some of the scientific issues involved, the specific ethical issues of the moral standing of the early human embryo and the problem of cooperation, and a consideration of two public policy issues: should the research go forward, and what kind of health care system should the United States adopt. The author argues that the public policy questions are the most important agenda.     

The Potentiality of the Embryo and the Somatic Cell

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.     

Rescuing human embryonic stem cell research: the Blastocyst Transfer Method

Despite the therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem (HES) cells, many people believe that HES cell research should be banned. The reason is that the present method of extracting HES cells involves the destruction of the embryo, which for many is the beginning of a person. This paper examines a number of compromise solutions such as parthenogenesis, the use of defective embryos, genetically creating a "pseudo embryo" that can never form a placenta, and determining embryo death, and argues that none of these proposals are likely to satisfy embryoists, that is, those who regard the embryo as a person. This paper then proposes a method of extracting HES cells, what might be called the Blastocyst Transfer Method, that meets the ethical requirements of embryoists, and it considers some possible concerns regarding this method. It concludes by encouraging future HES cell research to investigate this method.     

Rescuing Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research: The Blastocyst Transfer Method

Despite the therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem (HES) cells, many people believe that HES cell research should be banned. The reason is that the present method of extracting HES cells involves the destruction of the embryo, which for many is the beginning of a person. This paper examines a number of compromise solutions such as parthenogenesis, the use of defective embryos, genetically creating a “pseudo embryo” that can never form a placenta, and determining embryo death, and argues that none of these proposals are likely to satisfy embryoists, that is, those who regard the embryo as a person. This paper then proposes a method of extracting HES cells, what might be called the Blastocyst Transfer Method, that meets the ethical requirements of embryoists, and it considers some possible concerns regarding this method. It concludes by encouraging future HES cell research to investigate this method.     

人类胚胎的道德地位

胚胎干细胞技术的发展带来了干细胞来源的伦理争论,提出了如何看待"胚胎道德地位"的问题。围绕这一问题,有三种观点,它们分别从生物性、理性功能以及人的潜能性来界定胚胎的道德地位。通过对三种观点的分析,本文强调坚持人的尊严原则,是推动新兴生物技术发展的核心和归宿。     

Feminists on the inalienability of human embryos

The feminist literature against the commodification of embryos in human embryo research includes an argument to the effect that embryos are "intimately connected" to persons, or morally inalienable from them. We explore why embryos might be inalienable to persons and why feminists might find this view appealing. But, ultimately, as feminists, we reject this view because it is inconsistent with full respect for women's reproductive autonomy and with a feminist conception of persons as relational, embodied beings. Overall, feminists should avoid claims about embryos' being inalienable to persons in arguments for or against the commodification of human embryos.     

IVF technology and the argument from potential

Singer and Dawson point out that two arguments against abortion, that the embryo is entitled to protection because from fertilization it is (1) a human being or (2) a potential human being, are also used by opponents of embryo experimentation. They focus on the second argument, evaluating the notion of potentiality as it applies to gametes, to the unimplanted embryo, to the implanted developing embryo, and to the embryo created by in vitro fertilization (IVF). They argue that there is a crucial distinction between natural reproduction, in which all that is needed for the embryo to have a prospect of reaching its potential is for those involved to refrain from stopping it, and IVF, in which the embryo cannot develop into a person without a deliberate human act. Reproductive techniques necessitate our rethinking of established views about potentiality, and how it should be applied to the embryo in a laboratory.     

人类胚胎干细胞的伦理学应用

人类胚胎干细胞研究和使用面临很多问题,并且大部分已经进行了广泛的讨论,但目前仍有一些问题很少进行讨论。对这些问题的讨论将有助于更好地研究人类胚胎干细胞的使用问题,这些问题是：（1）干细胞研究与社会政策,各个国家有关的政策制定并不一致,除了禁止人的生殖性克隆的国际性公约外,国际性准则在胚胎研究的也没有提供明确的规定;（2）欧洲有些国家在相关的问题的立法一致性上存在着许多问题,有些甚至是相互预报的;（3）干细胞研究应用的预防原则的适宜性问题已引起人们的争论;（4）有利及避免浪费原则在干细胞研究中的应用。     

Embryos, individuals, and persons: an argument against embryo creation and research

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.     

Ethics and policy in embryonic stem cell research

Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to save many lives, must be recovered from aborted fetuses or live embyros. 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.     

Developing human-nonhuman chimeras in human stem cell research: ethical issues and boundaries

The transplantation of adult human neural stem cells into prenatal non-humans offers an avenue for studying human neural cell development without direct use of human embryos. However, such experiments raise significant ethical concerns about mixing human and nonhuman materials in ways that could result in the development of human-nonhuman chimeras. This paper examines four arguments against such research, the moral taboo, species integrity, "unnaturalness," and human dignity arguments, and finds the last plausible. It argues that the transfer of human brain or retinal stem cells to nonhuman embryos would not result in the development of human-nonhuman chimeras that denigrate human dignity, provided such stem cells are dissociated. The article provides guidelines that set ethical boundaries for conducting such research that are consonant with the requirements of human dignity.     

Human Cloning and Embryo Research: The 2003 John J. Conley Lecture on Medical Ethics

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.     

Permissive Situations and Direct Doxastic Control

According to what I will call ‘the disanalogy thesis,’ beliefs differ from actions in at least the following important way: while cognitively healthy people often exhibit direct control over their actions, there is no possible scenario where a cognitively healthy person exhibits direct control over her beliefs. Recent arguments against the disanalogy thesis maintain that, if you find yourself in what I will call a ‘permissive situation’ with respect to p, then you can have direct control over whether you believe p, and you can do so without manifesting any cognitive defect. These arguments focus primarily on the idea that we can have direct doxastic control in permissive situations, but they provide insufficient reason for thinking that permissive situations are actually possible, since they pay inadequate attention to the following worries: permissive situations seem inconsistent with the uniqueness thesis, permissive situations seem inconsistent with natural thoughts about epistemic akrasia, and vagueness threatens even if we push these worries aside. In this paper I argue that, on the understanding of permissive situations that is most useful for evaluating the disanalogy thesis, permissive situations clearly are possible.     

伦理,胚胎和干细胞研究

道德是关于规则、直觉、理解和观点的一个复杂系统。而后者影响着我们相互间处理事务的方式。它们交叉地渗入我们的道德思考。这种思维与胚胎、干细胞的伦理密切相关,因为胚胎和干细胞涉及我们对与治疗和移植组织有关的人的生命及其启始问题。就像在许多对待生命及其可以阐释的研究方法方面,要有一个道德的思辩历程一样,解决这些问题,部分地需要讨论,部分地需要回答。只有在我们认定这种讨论能够融入应用干细胞治疗的胚胎及其类源和人体组织的使用中时,我们才会清楚,大多数人体不同部位的干细胞应用是经过了对人的生命启始、我们儿童、家庭进行了思考。     

Ethical reflections on the status of the preimplantation embryo leading to the German embryo protection act

Ethical conflicts have always been connected with new techniques of reproductive medicine such as in-vitro fertilization. The fundamental question is: When does human life begin and from which stage of development should the embryo be protected? This question cannot be solved by scientific findings only. In prenatal ontogenesis there is no moment during the development from the fertilized oocyte to a human being which could be recognized as an orientation point for all ethical problems connected with the question of the right to dispose of prenatal life (interruption of pregnancy, research on embryos). The protection of an individual human life must be valid for all in the same manner and from the very beginning on. It must not depend on value judgments or on stages of development, so-called grades of humanity, because these would then become selection criteria. Procreated life must have the right to be born. These were the essential ethical arguments which led to the German Embryo Protection Law.     

Equality in Law and Philosophy

This article discusses various arguments for and against treating equality as a fundamental norm in law and political philosophy, combining prior arguments to the effect that equality is essentially an empty idea with arguments that treat it as a non‐empty but mistaken value that should be rejected. After concluding that most of the arguments for treating equality as a fundamental value fall victim to one or both of these arguments, it considers more closely arguments made by philosophers such as Ronald Dworkin and Thomas Nagel that base a duty of promoting equality on the fact that governments impose a legal order on persons without their consent. It concludes that these arguments are mistaken: if the legal order imposed by government is justified then imposing it is not wrongful and generates no duty of equal treatment, while if that order is not justified no requirement of equality of treatment would cure the lack of justification. It concludes that equality should not be a value in law or political theory, but in some cases other considerations (such as alleviating poverty and distress, promoting accuracy and substantive justice, avoiding arbitrariness, and other values) may justify particular rules that are sometimes mistakenly thought to be based on equality.     

The Selective Laziness of Reasoning

Reasoning research suggests that people use more stringent criteria when they evaluate others' arguments than when they produce arguments themselves. To demonstrate this “selective laziness,” we used a choice blindness manipulation. In two experiments, participants had to produce a series of arguments in response to reasoning problems, and they were then asked to evaluate other people's arguments about the same problems. Unknown to the participants, in one of the trials, they were presented with their own argument as if it was someone else's. Among those participants who accepted the manipulation and thus thought they were evaluating someone else's argument, more than half (56% and 58%) rejected the arguments that were in fact their own. Moreover, participants were more likely to reject their own arguments for invalid than for valid answers. This demonstrates that people are more critical of other people's arguments than of their own, without being overly critical: They are better able to tell valid from invalid arguments when the arguments are someone else's rather than their own.