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.
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, USA. klebacqz@mcn.org
Karen
K
Lebacqz
D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000941:ethics*; D033421:Beginning of Human Life / Q000941:ethics; D002410:Catholicism; D033041:Embryo Research / Q000941:ethics*; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells; D006801:Humans; D008128:Logic; D028681:Moral Obligations; D028723:Personhood; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D057905:Stem Cell Research / Q000941:ethics*; D009626:Terminology as Topic