How Ethical Is Embryonic Stem Cell Research?Embryonic stem cell research offers great hope - some would say our best hope - of finding cures for diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and many more distressing and life-limiting conditions, as well as possible cures for crippling spinal cord injuries and defects. Others would call it murder. There is virtually no limit to the possibilities of stem cell research; ethics perhaps warns that there has to be a start to human life which needs to be protected. The question hinges upon the concept of when exactly human life begins - and whether embryonic stem cell research moves us into the realm of playing God.
It's true that embryonic stem cell research leads to the destruction of human embryos as they are divided to provide samples of different types of cells which would eventually develop to provide blood, brains etc. But is it a baby at this stage? That's a problem of ethics; stem cell research involves taking fertilized eggs - usually those not implanted back into a woman's womb during in vitro fertilization - and splitting the stem cells into their different kinds, depending on what they would later develop into as the embryo grows - if it were allowed to. That's the problem for ethics: embryonic stem cell research, because it splits the embryo up, destroys its capability to develop. But does that mean it is killing it? Did it ever live? That's the problem for embryonic stem cell research ethics. It extends far beyond Christian objections, too. Extremists worry about the possibilities of having cloned human beings and creating a master race of the physically perfect, but is that likely? It's possible - perhaps, with embryonic stem cell research; ethics deals in abstract concepts, though, and perhaps the likelihood of this danger ever actually happening is small. There is a more realistic problem of ethics: stem cell research makes it possible to develop a fetus in order to use it as a 'spare part' - that is, to replace something defective in the body of another person. Critics talk of this in terms of dehumanizing life and turning it into a commodity, but perhaps this forgets or glosses over the ethics of the doctors involved. Few would want to go into the spare part industry. The problems run deeper than that. It is not necessary to consider an embryo to have the same status as a human baby to object to embryonic stem cell research; ethics would point us to the embryo being a natural thing, worthy of respect in its own right, regardless of its capability or otherwise of future human life. The two do not necessarily need to have the same ethical status. If we were to rule out all embryonic stem cell research, ethics dictating that an embryo from the very beginning is a human life, then ethics should perhaps also dictate that all fertility treatment then be outlawed, since it involves discarding viable human embryos capable of life. Would that be something that we would be prepared to do now that in vitro fertilization has offered hope and joy to many thousands of couples who would otherwise remain childless? Embryonic stem cell research ethics is a therefore a thorny issue which cannot easily be split into the two camps of pro-life and pro-choice in which the media often stages this debate. |