Embryos, microscopes, and society

From the time that James Thomson and colleagues (1998) fi rst announced the successful derivation of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines, there has been a heated debate about the ethical acceptability of hESC research because this research entails the destruction of human embryos (see Prainsack et al., 2008a). In an effort to quell this debate, governments, quasi-governmental organizations, and professional organizations around the world have sought to develop ethical standards for embryo research and hESC research, and to entrench these standards in laws or research guidelines. Together, these many and varied ethical and legal standards for embryo research and hESC research currently shape the fi eld of stem cell science. Their importance can be measured by the fact that scientists consider these standards In an effort to quell ongoing debate about the ethics of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, there have been concerted efforts to develop ethical standards for both emb...

Journal of applied philosophy, 2001

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2001

 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.

Law and Biomedicine, 2022

From a critical human rights-based approach, Law and Biomedicine addresses available international legal answers to various questions about human life and health affecting highly appreciated individual and social values—namely, autonomy, life, dignity, and moral status, among others. Papers of each lesson are available under request.

Over the last several decades many abortion advocates have attempted to spread confusion and doubt concerning the beginnings of human life. A particularly cynical strategy has involved invoking the authority historical thinkers, especially Doctors of the Church, to support the claim that (at least) early abortion does not constitute homicide because the early embryo is not yet fully human. Anyone familiar with context of these historical thinkers should realize that their specific judgments regarding abortion are now obsolete in virtue of their primitive scientific understanding of embryology. In what follows, I summarize the Aristotelian embryology that explains why these historical thinkers held the views that they did. I then explore how we should best understand their broader ethical views in light of our vastly superior contemporary knowledge of human embryology. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that if we apply the contemporary empirical findings of embryology the very same metaphysical and ethical principles informing the thinking of the historical figures supports the prolife position.

Birth Defects Research Part C: Embryo Today: Reviews, 2008

The following essay was delivered at the conference ''Ontogeny and Human Life'' at the Ponifical Athenaeum ''Regina Apostolorum,'' November, 2007. Sponsored by the Legion of Christ, the Pontifical Academy for Life, and the John Templeton Foundation, the sessions focused on when the conceptus became a ''person.'' My essay focused on the scientific conclusions that could aid such discussions. Moreover, after listening to the philosophical, legal, and theological discussions that ensued, I responded theologically as well. New concepts in modern embryology have made scientists revise their views concerning the autonomy of embryos and the mechanisms that generate such embryos. There are interactions between the sperm and the female reproductive tract and egg which had never been known until recently. There are also interactions between the developing organism and its environment that had been unsuspected a decade ago. Gut bacteria induce the development of the mammalian digestive system and immune system by changing the gene expression patterns in the mammalian intestine. Conversely, chemicals in our technological society can adversely affect the embryo, rendering it sterile or prone to tumors later in life. While there is no consensus among scientists as to when human life begins, both Church and science can become allies in persuading governments to regulate or ban the production and use of these fetotoxic chemicals. These new views of embryonic development change many of the stories told about human embryos and fetuses, and they have implications concerning the use of science as evidence for theological positions.

EMBO reports, 2009

“Embryos in the Early Modern and Modern Periods: A Visual Dialogue,” The Healthy Embryo, ed. Jeff Nisker et. al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 97-115.

This paper analyzes the transformation from the human zygote to the implanted embryo under the prism of substantial change. After a brief introduction, it vindicates the Aristotelian ideas of substance and accident, and those of substantial and accidental change. It then claims that the transformation from the multicelled zygote to the implanted embryo amounts to a substantial change. Pushing further, it contends that this substantial change cannot be explained following patterns of genetic reductionism, emergence, and self-organization, and proposes Gustavo Bueno's idea of anamorphosis as a means to encapsulate criticism against such positions.

In this article, I argue in favor of the moral permissibility of using surplus embryos (embryos leftover from fertility treatments) for human embryonic stem cell research. I will begin with a metaphysical argument: human blastocysts cannot be regarded as the beginning stages of an individual human life because fully developed human beings and blastocysts do not share an essential property-individuality. Because human beings are essentially individuals, and because human blastocysts are not, there can be no identity relation between them. Second, I argue that, even if we grant embryos the status of persons for the sake of argument, this does not necessarily entail the moral impermissibility of embryonic stem cell research since an extrauterine embryo cannot be given a right to compel others to gestate it, given that no person has a right to force others to undergo forced bodily intrusion as a method of sustenance. This makes the demise of these embryos inevitable, unless their respective genetic mother chooses to gestate (although embryo adoption is being compelled in at least one state as an alternative to destruction). Finally, given their destruction, I argue that using these embryos for research purposes illustrates a far more respectful attitude than destroying them in fertility clinics.