A PECULIAR feature of the ethical debate about embryonic stem cells is that
many people see no ethical problem at all. For them, embryos have no moral
status and their use as research objects is not disturbing. The possibility of
using embryonic stem cells for research and therapeutic purposes is more
important.
At the other end of the moral spectrum are those who believe embryos have
full moral standing and thus ought to be protected from use in research. Then
there are those like myself, who believe that even if embryos are not fully
human they deserve moral respect, and sufficiently so to avoid using them for
research.
The proponents of each of these positions would gain from any method of
producing embryonic stems cells (ESCs) that did not require the destruction of
an embryo. Even those who see no problem in embryo research would gain from
having the heat of debate turned down. Until recently, only the possibility of
using adult stem cells seemed to offer a way out. But while that route would
satisfy the pro-life adherents, it has limitations. So the technologies described
(see 鈥淏eating the ban鈥�)
are surely promising as a way of bypassing the moral opposition to embryo research.
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Each of the methods is a way to obtain stem cells without directly working on
an embryo. The crux of the embryo issue from an ethical perspective would seem
to be this: whether an organism having the principal features of an embryo
could, under ordinarily favourable circumstances, develop into a full human
being. Neither of the described methods appears to do that.
The parthenogenesis method looks perhaps the most promising. It also avoids
the problems of another proposed method, that of transferring a human nucleus to
the egg of another species
(see New 杏吧原创, 11 July 1998, p 4).
This would offend some, perhaps many, by mixing species material.
I have never felt that there is any urgency whatsoever in developing stem
cell approaches. There are other approaches to developing therapies for the
various conditions stem cells have been touted for. The fact that one line of
research is 鈥減romising鈥� is not enough to automatically allow it to trump ethical
problems.
Life in a pluralistic society requires not just toleration of other
viewpoints, but an effort to be deferential to them as far as possible. A good
way to do that is to work hard to find alternatives to the use and destruction
of embryos. By doing so, we display the respect owed to embryos鈥攅ven if
they are not fully human鈥攁nd to those who hold them in even higher
regard.