B efore turning to our policy recommendations in Part Five, it is important to consider the matter of legal and constitutional authority. Prohibiting private individuals from engaging in scientific or medical activities, even a project as morally unacceptable as human cloning, requires constitutional justification.
What provisions of the United States Constitution give the national government power to prohibit cloning-to-produce-children and cloning-for-biomedical-research? We here briefly consider several constitutional mechanisms for prohibiting human cloning and for legislating on human embryo research more generally.
There are precedents under the commerce clause for national regulation of activities related to reproduction. In , Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which restricts the ability of activists to protest near abortion clinics.
Another mechanism by which a nationwide prohibition on cloning could be implemented would be for the federal government to withhold certain forms of funding from states that engage in or do not forbid human cloning. Congress has used its spending power in this way to achieve a wide range of policy aims, most famously to create what amounted to a national mile-per-hour speed limit [79] and a national minimum age for purchasing or possessing alcohol.
In the case of cloning, Congress could require that the Department of Health and Human Services HHS not approve funding through the National Institutes of Health for biomedical research projects in states in which cloning is being practiced or in which cloning or other forms of embryo-destroying research have not been expressly forbidden by law. By limiting the funding restriction to biomedical research through NIH instead of also restricting funding for state-level work related to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or other agencies of HHS , Congress could ensure that the law would satisfy the requirements of not being coercive and of being reasonably related to the expenditure.
Such a law would not guarantee that all states would prohibit human cloning; some might elect to forgo NIH funding in order to continue permitting cloning. Representative Lamar Smith R. Such a prohibition could also apply to the products of cloning or of embryo-destroying research, including embryonic stem cell lines. Interestingly, a recent ruling suggests that specific cloned animals , too, may not be patentable. The U. Prohibiting patents on human cloning methods would likely reduce the incentive for those who might hope to profit from the adoption of cloning by the fertility industry.
And prohibiting patents on the products of cloning would likely reduce the incentives to engage in cloning-for-biomedical-research. As of this writing, human embryonic stem cell lines can be patented, [90] and U. This argument assumes that the cost of licensing patented methods would represent a significant barrier to entering the field, which seems unlikely to us.
However, this argument does suggest that the intellectual-property approach to restricting cloning ought to be seen as an addition, not an alternative, to the other approaches described here. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. S upporters of human cloning might claim that a prohibition on cloning violates putative constitutional rights. Here we proleptically address two such potential objections.
Now that human embryos have been successfully created through cloning, we may be approaching a day — perhaps in just the next few years — when some fertility clinics might choose to offer cloning as a reproductive option to clients, or when would-be parents might request cloning as a reproductive service. In such circumstances, judicial challenges to restrictions on human cloning may become a serious policy matter, so it is worth reviewing previous court decisions that may bear on the question of whether cloning may be protected under a constitutional right to reproductive freedom.
Federal jurisprudence in this area is notoriously contentious. These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.
Consequently, a woman possesses the right to become pregnant by artificial insemination. However, even today reproductive freedom is not unlimited. Andrews, we also restrict incest. Restrictions on cloning-to-produce-children can be defended on both those same grounds.
Some policymakers and legal analysts have argued that prohibiting cloning-for-biomedical-research would violate an amorphous right under the First Amendment to engage in scientific experimentation. During the first wave of cloning debates in the late s, Senator Tom Harkin D. None, whatsoever…. Take your ranks alongside Pope Paul V, who in tried to stop Galileo. Alta Charo, some experiments can be protected under the First Amendment. Finally, it is worth noting that there are already many examples of restrictions on scientific research today, most obviously laws and regulations protecting human research subjects and the welfare of animals used in experiments.
The distinction between a temporary moratorium and a permanent prohibition is not clear-cut, since Congress can revisit and overturn past laws or can indefinitely renew any temporary moratorium.
Some policymakers may find a cloning moratorium attractive because it would imply that the justification for a prohibition may change in the future. But the most important reasons for outlawing human cloning are not historically relative. While encouraging, this represents less than a quarter of all countries. International organizations have also been working towards prohibitions on reproductive cloning.
The Additional Protocol to the Convention on the Prohibition of Cloning Human Beings prohibits "any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead. Advocates of human reproductive cloning hope to make it happen before a global ban is in place, in the expectation that opposition will weaken in the face of a fait accompli.
Estimates as to when a human clone might be born, if no action is taken to prevent it, range from immediately to five or ten years. Some countries, notably France, Germany, and Canada, explicitly ban the creation of clonal embryos. These countries have done so without infringing upon reproductive rights or jeopardizing a woman's right to an abortion.
Dworkin puts it in less secular terms: "It is wrong, people say, particularly after more familiar objections have been found wanting, to play God".
Another reason concerns for human dignity may be used so frequently as a justification for cloning bans is that they allow policy makers to avoid more socially controversial and politically charged rationales, such as those based on a particular religious perspective or abortion politics.
It is far easier, at least politically, to say that a given law is based on concern for human dignity than on, for example, a Christian view of the moral status of the embryo — though there seems little doubt that religious perspectives have played an important role in the policy process. In addition, the use of human dignity allows policy makers to avoid the appearance that they are seeking to regulate morality. For many legal scholars, moral belief or repugnance "is not sufficient to outlaw conduct engaged in by consenting adults".
Finally, I suspect that much of the debate remains scientifically ill-informed. Media images of reproductive cloning, which are everywhere, often portray clones as "carbon copies". In fact, I too have intuitive concerns regarding the appropriateness of human reproductive cloning. I believe that reproductive cloning will have little practical use, the health and safety concerns will likely endure for decades, and it may create some challenging genetic enhancement issues.
There are, no doubt, sound reasons to consider the tight regulation of reproductive cloning. Why, then, is the ad hoc use of the notion of human dignity in the context of reproductive cloning a problem? It hurts public debate. Though I am tremendously skeptical of the worth of intuitive reactions as a justification for a given law, particularly criminal prohibitions [ 57 ] if general cultural anxiety is one of the rationales for a proposed ban, then this should be explicitly stated.
Policy makers should not dress up the argument as a concern for human dignity in order to create the perception of legitimacy.
By doing so, transparency in policy making is obscured or even lost. As noted by Shaun Pattinson in his critique of the Canadian government's use of human dignity as a justification for a ban: "Once again we are left with the feeling that other arguments are in play but remain unsure as to what those arguments are". If the concerns about cloning are based on the fear that we live in a world increasingly governed by inaccurate views of genetic determinism and, therefore, people may have inappropriate ideas of what cloning can do, [ 59 ] then this too should be stated.
Indeed, it could be argued that we should be focussing our policy making energy not on the technology but on the possible causes of the deterministic sentiments that may motivate the desire to use reproductive cloning. Unfortunately, "genetic determinism" is a much more challenging and amorphous policy target as compared with human cloning technology.
In addition, using human dignity as a blanket argument against all forms of human cloning makes it much more difficult to reflect rationally on the true risks and benefits of the technology. Such claims can have powerful rhetorical force no one is against the idea of human dignity! Finally, we are in danger of trivializing and degrading the potential normative value of human dignity.
There seems little doubt that the rapid advances that are occurring in the field of science, and biotechnology in particular, will continue to create new social and regulatory challenges, many of which may also raise issues associated with notions of human dignity. The way we handle current science policy issues stands as a precedent for future analysis. The ad hoc application of human dignity in relation to human cloning will undoubtedly impact how it is applied to future technologies.
We should strive to apply the principle in a logical and coherent fashion otherwise the notion of human dignity is in danger of being eroded to the point where it stands as nothing more than a symbol of amorphous cultural anxiety.
Vogel G: Dolly goes to greener pastures. Google Scholar. Bonnicksen A: Crafting a cloning policy: from Dolly to stem cells. Washington: Georgetown University Press. Schachter O: Human dignity as a normative concept. Am J Int Law. Article Google Scholar. Malby S: Human dignity and human reproductive cloning. Heath and Human Rights.
Christian Bioethics. Public Law. Edited by: Meyer M, Parent W. Kass L: The wisdom of repugnance. The New Republic. June 2, Mohler RA: The brave new world of cloning: a Christian worldview perspective. In Human Cloning: Religious Responses. Vogel G: Misguided chromosomes foil primate cloning. Giles G, Knight J: Dolly's death leaves researchers woolly on clone ageing issue.
Saad L: Cloning of humans is a turn off to most Americans. Gallup News Service. May 16, Health and Human Rights. The Lockhart Report noted that:. Issues relating to the moral and ethical aspects of therapeutic cloning are discussed in more detail below.
After weighing up the various arguments, the Lockhart Report recommended that human SCNT should be permitted recommendation The Bill implements this recommendation. This recommendation is limited by the current provisions in the PHC Act that prohibit:. A live embryo that has a human genome or an altered human genome and that has been developing for less than 8 weeks since the appearance of 2 pronuclei or the initiation of its development by other means.
The current definition of human embryo refers to the appearance of the first two pronuclei. This has been regarded as being too restrictive for research purposes. The Lockhart Report, for example, stated the following:. This prevents any research requiring experimental fertilisation of an egg with sperm because, once the two pronuclei are visible the earliest biological marker for such research , an embryo has been created and creation of a human embryo for research contravenes the PHC Act s These provisions prevent a range of research to improve IVF, including maturation of oocytes, testing of sperm quality and fertilisation research.
Under the current definition of a human embryo, researchers are not able to undertake experimental fertilisation studies because the legislation requires the process to cease before the two pronuclei are formed thereby preventing the researcher from confirming that fertilisation has occurred As a result, the NHMRC s Working Party s draft discussion paper recommended moving the point in time in which an embryo, formed through fertilisation of an oocyte with a sperm, is taken to have been created, to the first mitotic cell division.
The NHMRC Working Party argued that this should be the point in time where an embryo is regarded as being created because by that point in time the genome for the entity has been created and it is the earliest point after creation of the genome that scientists can actually visualise this milestone. The draft discussion paper considered that the current definition of human embryo does not accommodate these new technologies and hence considered that it should be amended.
Drafting a definition of a human embryo does raise a large number of moral and ethical considerations. These are explored in further detail below. The Lockhart Committee recommended that the definition of a human embryo used in both Acts should be changed to that definition set out in the draft discussion paper recommendation The definition of human embryo in the final version of the discussion paper differs slightly to that contained within the draft version.
The Bill proposes to amend the definition of human embryo and it uses the definition of human embryo that is used in the final version of the NHMRC Working Party s discussion paper. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill notes that the definition proposed in the Bill differs from that recommended by the Lockhart Committee in its report.
The Lockhart Report stated that:. The overwhelming response to the reviews from ART providers and researchers was that the legislation has impeded research to improve ART technologies that was active before the legislation was passed. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this Digest to explore all of these issues in depth, the following are examples of some of the areas identified in the Lockhart Report that have been regarded as impeding ART research and clinical practice.
The culture, and then maturation, of oocytes under laboratory conditions in vitro maturation IVM is regarded by researchers as being a process that could produce a variety of advantageous scientific outcomes. The Lockhart Report explains that:. IVM is a complex procedure in which both the nucleus and the cytoplasm of the oocyte need to be brought to precisely the right point of maturity to allow fertilisation with a sperm.
Determining the right point of maturity could happen by fertilising the oocytes. The Lockhart Report stated the following:. Dr John McBain, Director, Melbourne IVF, told the Committee that the biggest effect of the Act has been prevention of work on in vitro maturation of oocytes from frozen ovarian tissues.
These oocytes cannot be fertilised under the current definition of embryo because the legislation requires the process to cease just before the two pronuclei are formed thereby preventing the researcher from confirming fertilisation.
As noted above, the Lockhart Report proposed changes to the current definition of human embryo to address this problem. One other way of determining the right point of maturity for IVM is through parthenogenesis. The Lockhart Report noted that currently IVM oocytes cannot be parthenogenetically activated to test their activation potential because parthenogenetic activation of oocytes is illegal under the PHC Act.
The report also recommended that implantation of the oocyte into the women s reproductive tract should continue to be prohibited recommendations 16, 3 and 4. The Lockhart Report noted that the prohibition of creation of human animal hybrid embryos section 20 of the PHC Act , combined with the current definition of an embryo, has also prevented research or testing requiring fertilisation. For example, ART researchers and practitioners were previously able to undertake fertilisation studies using human sperm and animal oocytes eg hamster to test sperm quality.
The report noted that they are no longer able to do this as a result of section 20 of the PHC Act. The report went on to recommend that the legislation be changed to permit the creation of human-animal hybrids up to the point of, but not including, the first cell division to allow testing of human gamete maturity or viability recommendation 17 and recommendation The Lockhart Report noted that the creation of a human embryo for any purpose other than to achieve a pregnancy in a woman prevents the creation and use of fresh embryos for research.
Some ART researchers indicated that a number of valuable studies could be done if it were possible to use embryos created from eggs and sperm specifically for research up to the stage of implantation. This is prohibited by current legislation The Lockhart Report rejected the idea of permitting the creation of human embryos specifically for research purposes, apart from that permitted under recommendation The current legislation also prohibits the use of fresh excess ART embryos through the consent process.
The 14 day cooling-off period that is required after embryo donors give consent for a specific research project but before the embryo is used see Sections The Lockhart Report also noted that embryos that are not suitable for implantation for any reasons are allowed to die and are not available for research despite the fact that such embryos would be a useful source of fresh embryos for research, training and quality assurance activities.
The Lockhart Report recommended that embryos that are unsuitable for implantation should be permitted to be used for research, training and improvements in clinical practice.
It also recommended that objective guidelines be drawn up for use in determining when an embryo is unsuitable for implantation recommendations Cytoplasmic transfer has been used as a fertility treatment overseas, particularly for older women. It has also been flagged as a possible treatment for the prevention of mitochondrial disease. Research on cytoplasmic transfer in Australia has been prohibited since because it would lead to the creation of a human embryo containing genetic material provided by more than two persons currently sections 15 and 18 of the PHC Act.
It is the Committee s view that cytoplasmic transfer offers potential for the treatment of mitochondrial disease and to improve fertilisation for some women.
Therefore consideration should be given to research, under licence, on this procedure. The Lockhart Committee identified three areas of concern in relation to having prescriptive legislation in relation to these issues.
Accordingly, the Lockhart Committee made recommendations 50 The Explanatory Memorandum explains:. Those recommendations suggest that the NHMRC Licensing Committee should be given the power to give legally binding rulings on the interpretation of the legislation and that a person who conducts research on the basis of a ruling should be protected from liability under the legislation.
However, the Explanatory Memorandum goes on to explain that this latter recommendation recommendation 52 raises significant constitutional issues relating to the impermissible exercise of judicial power by a non-judicial body.
The processes that have been put in place for monitoring compliance with the legislation and facilitating compliance are generally regarded as suitable, although suggestions for improvements to the system were also made. It is clear that there is a major deficiency in the legislation with regard to the limited powers of the inspectors appointed under the RIHE Act to monitor activities that are not covered by a licence.
As a result of this deficiency, suspected breaches by non-licence holders cannot be adequately investigated. Further, the Lockhart Committee reported that it had heard that in relation to licensed premises inspectors are not empowered to make unannounced inspections and this inhibits their ability to investigate suspected breaches of the legislation.
The Lockhart Committee reported that there was widespread support of the NHMRC Licensing Committee for its regulatory oversight of the type of research the subject of review. As appointment to the committee involves approval by all States and Territories, there have been lengthy delays in filling vacancies.
The [Lockhart] Committee noted that there is not scope in the [RIHE] Act as presently framed to address this problem, which is because the Licensing Committee is a national committee that oversees research in all States and Territories. The Committee therefore draws this to the attention of the Australian Parliament and the [COAG] for consideration and recommends that they give urgent attention to this problem. At present the exportation from Australia of a human embryo is prohibited unless permission has been granted by the Minister for Customs pursuant to regulation 7 of the Customs Prohibited Exports Regulations The Committee s view is that the current arrangements, which involve personal application to the Minister for Customs to export embryos for personal reproductive use, are too cumbersome and stressful for users and should be streamlined.
Accordingly, in recommendation 41 , the Lockhart Committee recommended that the import or export of a patient s reproductive material for their own ongoing ART treatment should only be subject to existing quarantine regulation.
As the number of human stem cell lines has increased throughout the world, it has become apparent that there is a need for the creation of stem cell registries and stem cell banks to enable researchers to locate cell lines of interest, along with appropriate information about source and quality.
While the current focus of interest in stem cell banks is on the registration and storage of embryonic stem cell lines for research, it is possible that in subsequent years advances in stem cell engineering and transplant immunology may mean that stem cell banks also come to fulfil an important clinical function.
Accordingly, the Committee recommended that a national stem cell bank be established recommendation The Committee also recommended that a national register of donated excess ART embryos be established recommendation As mentioned above, the Lockhart Committee had heard a number of concerns about the capacity of legislation to respond to research needs in a fast-moving area of technology.
It is beyond the scope of this Digest to cover the international state of play in relation to cloning and stem cell development. For a recent comparative overview of regulatory frameworks for stem cell and cloning research in 50 countries, refer to Beyond the Permissibility of Embryonic and Stem Cell Research: Substantive Requirements and Procedural Safeguards. Permitting SCNT or the use of excess ART embryos for scientific purposes raises significant arguments about the moral status of the human embryo.
Any developments and advances, whether they are societal or technological, require constant identification, analysis and, if necessary, regulation. Such regulation most commonly is achieved through laws either by application of existing laws or through the creation of new ones. Existing laws can be utilised by expanding their application as the result of judicial interpretation.
However, where courts are unable to stretch the application of a particular law far enough to bring the development or advance within its reach, it can become necessary for lawmakers to provide new, or modify existing, regulatory frameworks. In , the Australian Federal Parliament was faced with the task of reacting to new developments in molecular genetics and biomedicine. It passed new legislation to regulate human cloning and provided a regime for research involving human embryos.
With this Bill, Federal Parliament is again concerned with this issue, proposing to pass amendments that will refine and develop the existing legislation concerning reproductive and other forms of cloning, combining countervailing and adaptive regulatory measures to accommodate the scientific advances that occurred since the last debates in Parliament.
It is not difficult to predict that the ensuing parliamentary debate will be passionate and controversial. Vigorous debates ensued the last time this topic was discussed in Parliament. Controversy is usually the result of different political ideologies or agendas. Complexity is often caused by the need to skilfully craft very complex legal solutions to implement policies; sometimes the legal complexity of the proposed laws is part of the controversy.
This Bill is very controversial. This is not necessarily due to different political ideologies; rather the controversy arises because the proposed changes are founded upon significant moral and ethical considerations of the genesis and evolution of life. As these considerations are guided strongly by personal beliefs and convictions rather than by political views, it seems only proper that the ensuing debate is not conducted along party lines. This is not a political, but a personal debate.
The ensuing debate strikes at the heart of humanity and dignity. The following brief discourse is not an attempt to give conclusive answers to any of the issues which may influence the debate. Rather, it is to serve as an overview of the underlying moral and ethical considerations, their origins and, if possible, as a primer for further thought. As such it is aimed at avoiding a reduction of the debate to a battle of beneficial and knowledgeable cleverness versus ignorant and superstitious anxiety.
At the outset, it is important to identify the core and scope of the controversy surrounding stem cell research. The less controversial sources include those that do not require the destruction of a blastocyst, a form of embryo developed at the earliest stages of embryogenesis.
Prominently, the United States US and Germany have decided not to provide federal funding US , or even to prohibit outright Germany , the creation of new stem cell lines, but both nations permitted research on lines that were already in existence at the time the prohibition came into force or was announced.
The more controversial sources include those that require the harvesting of stem cells from embryos that were:. These sources for stem cells are more controversial because their harvesting will require the embryo s destruction.
The substance of this controversy relates to the moral status of the embryo. What will be destroyed when the stem cells are harvested: a plain cell mass or an early embryo? If it is an early embryo, is it already human life with the same moral status as a human being? Or does this early embryo constitute ante-nascent human life, which has not gained sufficient personality or personhood ; that is, it has not yet acquired the same moral status as a born human being? And, finally, is there a moral difference between an embryo created by sperm and egg and those created by SCNT, parthenogenesis or other laboratory means?
The answers are important because born human life is considered to have the highest moral status that correlates with the full protection against destruction. This protection stems from concepts such as inviolable human dignity and human rights. The intentional destruction of a born human being is generally considered homicide. Thus, if it is argued that the embryo possesses the same moral status as a born human being, the logical consequence is inescapable: the destruction of this embryo equates to homicide.
If it can be reasoned that the embryo is merely a cell mass or an early embryo without the same moral status when compared to born human life, its intentional destruction would not necessarily equate to homicide. To argue in favour of the destruction of an embryo without moral status would reduce or even fully eliminate the moral or ethical dilemma.
These considerations amount to the search for a justification of why the destruction of an embryo is not homicide which is deemed by society to be the most reprehensible of all crimes. Two threshold questions underpin these considerations, including:. A further issue discussed in the literature is whether the purpose for which the embryo was created should be considered in the context of this debate. Two immediately obvious moments mark the point in time in which a new life or the life of a new organism may begin.
The second possible moment is the birth of a human being itself. Neither can be discredited comprehensively. However, there are also strong arguments in favour of why one moment is considered too early and the other too late. The interim period between conception and birth is marked by a continuum of evolutionary steps. Examples from the early stages of this evolution include the:.
At least theoretically, each of the above moments could be the point in time in which life commences. Indeed, all of them have been used to define this moment. The choice of one moment in time over the other is generally rationalised based on a belief system or conviction, promoting arguments derived, for example, from science or religion.
However, regardless of the persuasiveness of the supporting arguments, the fact remains that any point in time within this continuum of evolution will be an arbitrary point with the potential to spark considerable disagreement. German philosopher J rgen Habermas noted that:. The fact that every attempt to draw a definite line somewhere between fertilization, or the fusion of nuclei, on the one hand, and birth on the other hand is more or less arbitrary because of the high degree of continuity prevailing in the development from the organic origins to, first, life capable of feeling and, then, to personal life.
For him, the very fact of the continuum between conception and birth speaks against any attempt to ascertain an absolute beginning for the purpose of lawmaking. A separate question is whether the moment in which life begins is also the moment in which life assumes the qualities of born human life or a human being. Conceptually, the discussion considers that even if it is possible to determine exactly when life commences, further developmental steps are required to form a human being and the acquisition of a moral status is gradual.
If this proposition is accepted, then it follows that the protection that correlates with the moral status also increases gradually during the embryogenesis. The apex of this gradual acquisition of moral status and protection is reached with the birth of the human being.
For example, despite accepting that a human embryo is a member of the human species, not a member of some other species such as frogs or cows , Harvard Professor D W Brock has noted that:.
That is because the moral status of human persons does not derive simply from their species membership. Rather, it must be some properties of humans that endow them with personhood and in particular make it seriously wrong to kill them. Whilst this distinction seems somewhat artificial, it is quite common. In her book Stem Cells, Controversy at the Frontiers of Science , science journalist and biochemist Elizabeth Finkel has written that the Catholic church is taking the view that the question when an embryo acquires personhood or the moral status of a human being is governed by science rather by theology.
According to Finkel, this point is currently reached with the fusion of female and male genetic material, that is, after conception. Other Christian churches and religions apparently also distinguish between the creation of life and the acquisition of personhood. Finkel refers to examples from the Anglican Church, Judaism and Islam, all of which believe in the gradual evolution of personhood over time. Interestingly, the author reports that Judaism and Islam consider this evolution to be completed after a period of forty days the time Catholic cleric and philosopher Thomas Aquinas assigned to the ensoulment of an embryo.
Two issues are, however, important to note. First, despite apparently accepting the acquisition of personhood at a later stage then conception, the Catholic church deems the protection of human life to attach from the moment of conception.
Second, the observation that Christian teachings advocated the gradual acquisition of personhood is controversial. Professor G Dunstan, who is one of the leading proponents of the gradual acquisition and claimed that the full protection of even the early embryo from the point of fertilisation is a result of late th century Christian teachings, has recently been challenged.
Professor D A Jones argues that Professor Dunstan s work is based on the omission of important authorities, and is reliant on flawed sources and the failure to distinguish between divergent categories. In his opinion, throughout Christian history, the deliberate destruction even of early embryonic life was considered to be homicide.
Whether a human embryo is a human life with a moral status equal to that of born human life is also an influential issue during any abortion debate. American medical doctor and biochemist Leon R Kass, Chair of the President s Council of Bioethics between and , suggested that these debates are analogous, if not identical. Divorcing the commencement of life from the moment in which life acquires the status of a human being offers two advantages to the proponents of stem cell research and the legislature, including that it:.
It is important to realise, however, that the gradual acquisition of personhood takes place in the same continuum in which the commencement of life takes place the period between conception and birth.
This gradual acquisition may even continue after birth. Therefore, it must be stressed that any attempt to specify individual grades of moral status along the time line between conception and birth are inevitably arbitrary. Parallels to the discussion in relation to the genesis of life, referred to above, are in order. Thus, to mark the line when a human embryo is deemed to have acquired a moral status sufficient to refute any justification of its destruction is likewise arbitrary.
Consequently, the criticism that such arbitrariness confounds any attempt to draw a line as the basis for legal implications in this period must apply here as well.
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