"More on respect for embryos and potentiality: does respect for embryos entail respect for in vitro embryos?".
It is commonly assumed that persons who hold abortions to be generally impermissible must, for the same reasons, be opposed to embryonic stem cell research [ESR]. Yet a settled position against abortion does not necessarily direct one to reject that research. The difference in potentiality between the embryos used in ESR and embryos discussed in the abortion debate can make ESR acceptable even if one holds that abortion is impermissible. With regard to their potentiality, in vitro embryos are here argued to be more morally similar to clonable somatic cells than they are to in vivo embryos. This creates an important moral distinction between embryos in vivo and in vitro. Attempts to refute this moral distinction, raised in the recent debate in this journal between Alfonso Gómez-Lobo and Mary Mahowald, are also addressed.
Hanson
Stephen S
SS
Gheens Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in Bioethics School of Medicine and Department of Philosophy, University of Louisville, MedCenter One, Suite 270, 501 East Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202, USA. stephen.hanson@louisville.edu
D033421:Beginning of Human Life; D015925:Cryopreservation; D033041:Embryo Research / Q000941:ethics*; D032984:Ethics, Research; D006801:Humans; D028681:Moral Obligations; D028723:Personhood; D035845:Research Embryo Creation / Q000941:ethics; D013234:Stem Cells; D026712:Value of Life