Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:16:40.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Physician Attitudes toward the Regulation of Fetal Tissue Therapies: Empirical Findings and Implications for Public Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Michelle A. Mullen  and
Frederick H. Lowy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The use of aborted fetal tissues in research and therapy (FTT) has raised exciting possibilities and a host of social, legal and ethical issues. Perhaps the most difficult issue is whether the use of materials from elective abortion can be viewed and weighed separately from the abortion itself, or if in using these tissues there is inherent complicity with the abortion act. Those who oppose FTT claim that there is complicity with the abortion act and liken the use of fetal tissue from abortions to the use of data from the Nazi experiments. Within this lobby are those who claim that the option to donate fetal tissues will make abortion a more attractive alternative for pregnant women, and that there are doctors who will offer fetal tissue donation as a positive incentive to abortion-with the net effect that more abortions will take place.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Summer 1993 , pp. 241 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The authors wish to acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, SSHRC Strategic Grant No. 806-02-0010, and the Ontario Ministry of Health Grant No. 03006 for support. Ms. Mullen is an Ontario Graduate Scholar and holds a SSHRC doctoral fellowship. The Centre for Bioethics is also supported by the William C. Harris and Bertha Rosenstadt estates.Google Scholar
Crombleholme, T.M. et al., “Transplantation of Fetal Cells,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1991, 164:218–80.Google Scholar
Hansen, John T. and Sladek, John R. Jr, “Fetal Research,” Science, 246 (10 November 1989): 775–779.Google Scholar
National Institutes of Health, Report of the Human Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Panel, (Washington D.C. 1988), 2:D28–D31.Google Scholar
Mullen, Michelle A., “The Use of Human Embryos and Fetal Tissues: A Research Architecture,” Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, (Ottawa: January 1992),13–21.Google Scholar
Murphy, P.J., “Moral Perspectives on the Use of Embryonic Cell Transplantation for Correction of Nervous System Disorders,” Applied Neurophysiology, 1984, 47:65–68.Google Scholar
Murphy, J.B., “The Ethics of Research Using Human Fetal Tissue,” New England Journal of Medicine, 1989, (Correspondence) 321:1608.Google Scholar
Right to Life Association of Toronto & Area, Experimentation in Preborn and Newborn Children, (Toronto 1991):14–15.Google Scholar
Burtchaell, James T., “Case Study: University Policy on Experimental Use of Aborted Fetal Tissue,” IRB: A Review of Human Subjects Research, Hastings Center, July/August 1988.Google Scholar
Freedman, Benjamin, “Response to Burtchaell: The Ethics of Using Human Fetal Tissue,” IRB: A Review of Human Subjects Research, Hastings Center, November/December 1988.Google Scholar
Robertson, J.A., “Fetal Tissue Transplant Research is Ethical,” IRB: A Review of Human Subjects Research, Hastings Center, November/December 1988.Google Scholar
Mahowald, Mary et al. “The Ethical Options in Fetal Transplants,” Hastings Center Report, 1987, 17:9–15.Google Scholar
Simons, A., “Brave New Harvest,” Christianity Today, (November 19, 1990):24–28.Google Scholar
Strong, Carson, “Fetal Tissue Transplantation: Can It Be Morally Insulated from Abortion?” Journal of Medical Ethics, 1991, 17:70–76.Google Scholar
King, P. & Areen, J., “Legal Regulation of Fetal Tissue Transplantation,” Clinical Research, 1988, 36(3):205–208; An exhaustive review of international regulations and policies is provided in Vawter, Dorothy E. et al., The Use of Human Fetal Tissue: Scientific, Ethical and Policy Concerns. (A report of phase 1 of an interdisciplinary research project conducted by the Center for Biomedical Ethics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.) (January 1990): 169-187.Google Scholar
Council Report, “Medical Applications of Fetal Tissue Transplantation,” Council on Scientific Affairs & Council on Ethical & Judicial Affairs, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1990, 263:565–70.Google Scholar
Dickson, D., “Fetal Tissue Transplants Win U.K. Approval,” Science, 1989, 245:464–5.Google Scholar
Scottish Home & Health Department, Welsh Office, Department of Health & Social Security Report of the Advisory Group, “The Use of Foetuses and Foetal Material for Research,” HMSO, London, 1972.Google Scholar
British Medical Association, Interim Guidelines on the Use of Foetal Tissue in Transplantation Therapy, 1988.Google Scholar
Comite Consultatif National d'Ethique pour les Sciences de la Vie et de la Sante, Avis sur les Prelevements a des Fins Therapeutiques, Diagnostics et Scientifiques de Tissus d'Embryons ou de Foetus Humains Morts, Paris, 1984.Google Scholar
Swedish Society of Medicine, Provisional Guidelines for the Use of Fetal Tissue in Transplantation Therapy, adopted by the Delegation for Medical Ethics of the Swedish Society of Medicine, 18 November 1985.Google Scholar
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Opinion on the Use of Dead Human Embryos for Industrial and Commercial Purposes, Doc. 5479, 28 September 1985.Google Scholar
National Health & Medical Research Council, “Ethics in Medical Research Involving the Human Fetus and Human Fetal Tissue,” Medical Journal of Australia, 1984, 140:610–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medical Research Council of Canada, Guidelines on Research Involving Human Subjects,” 1987, p.32.Google Scholar
Marshall, T.D., “Canadian Regulation of the Use of Fetal Tissue in Research and Therapy,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1989, 140:1021.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Andrew, “Foetal Neuroendocrine Tissue for Transplantation in Parkinson's Disease: An Institutional Review Board Faces the Ethical Dilemma,” Transplant Proceedings, 1990, 22:1030–32.Google Scholar
Sullivan, P., “CMA's Discussion on Fetal Rights May Spark Debate,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1990, 143:404–5.Google Scholar
Hilts, P.J., “Groups Set Up Panel on Use of Fetal Tissue,” The New York Times (Medical Science), 8 January 1991.Google Scholar
Fine, Alan, “The Ethics of Fetal Tissue Transplants,”Google Scholar
McLaren, Ann, Report on the use of human foetal, embryonic and pre-embryonic material for diagnostic, therapeutic, scientific, industrial and commercial purposes, prepared for the Council of Europe, May 1989.Google Scholar
Lowy, Frederick H., Fetal Tissue Transplantation: Time for a Canadian Policy, Canadian M edical Association Journal, 1989, 141:1227-1229.Google ScholarPubMed
Freedman, Benjamin, Fetal Tissue Transplantation: Politics, Not Policy, Canadian Medical Association journal, 1989, 141:1230-32.Google Scholar
Dickens, Bernard M., Confronting Ethical Factors in Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine, John T. Law Lecture, 30 September 1982,The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. p.4.Google Scholar
Lewis, J., (Letter) Lancet, 30 April 1988, p.1005.Google Scholar
Grusec, J.E., Sanctions and Rewards: The Approach of Psychology, in Sanctions and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Friedland, M.L., (University of Toronto Press, 1989), pp. 109-136.Google Scholar
A manuscript detailing full results of this survey is in preparation.Google Scholar
Note: in Canada, provincial Colleges of Physicia ns and Surgeons (CPS) are quasi-governmental organizations established by statute and comprise the provincial medical licensing and discipline bodies.Google Scholar
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Research on the Fetus: Report and Recommendations, DHEW, 1975, Publication No. (05):76-127; D. Lehrman, Summary: Fetal Research and Fetal Tissue Research, Association of American Medical Colleges, 1988: 2-9, 11-13, 21-23.Google Scholar
Annas, G.J. and Elias, S., The Politics of Transplantation of Human Fetal Tissue, New England Journal of Medicine, 1989, 320:1079-82.Google ScholarPubMed
Beauchamp, Tom L. and Walters, LeRoy, Contemporary Issues in Bioethics 3rd Edition, Wadsworth Publishing Co., (Belmont California, 1989):28-37.Google Scholar
R. v. Sullivan, [1991], SCJ No.20 (SCC), 21 March 1991.Google Scholar