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Moral Status, Human Identity, and Early Embryos: A Critique of the President's Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

David DeGrazia
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On August 9, 2001, President George W. Bush delivered a statement that would have a great effect on bioethics policy in the United States. The President stated his belief that human life is a sacred gift from the Creator, expressed his strong opposition to any type of human cloning, and announced a policy of restricting federal funds for embryonic stem cell research to studies on stem cell lines already in existence at the time of his statement. He also announced his intention to create the President's Council on Bioethics (PCB), headed by Leon Kass, “to monitor stem cell research, to recommend appropriate guidelines and regulations, and to consider all of the medical and ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation.” On November 28, 2001, President Bush formally created the PCB, which began its deliberations the following January.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , Spring 2006 , pp. 49 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

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References

Bush, G. W., Remarks on Stem Cell Research, The Bush Ranch, Crawford, TX, August 9, 2001.Google Scholar
Bush, G. W., “Stem Cell Science and the Preservation of Life,” New York Times, August 12, 2001, at D 13.Google Scholar
President's Council on Bioethics, Monitoring Stem Cell Research (Washington, DC: PCB, 2004), Letter of Transmittal to the President of the United States: Ix-xii, at x.Google Scholar
President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry (Washington, DC: PCB, 2002), Executive Summary: Xxi-xxxix.Google Scholar
See, e.g., Baker, L. R., Persons and Bodies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See, e.g., DeGrazia, D., “Are we Essentially Persons? Olson, Baker, and a Reply,” Philosophical Forum 33 (2002): 101–120; and DeGrazia, D., Human Identity and Bioethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): Chapter 2.Google Scholar
See, e.g., DeGrazia, D., supra note 6 (both works).Google Scholar
McMahan, J., The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002): Chapter 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See DeGrazia, D., Human Identity and Bioethics, supra note 6.Google Scholar
Ibid. For a prominent defense of this view, see Olson, E. T., The Human Animal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
See, e.g., Paul, Pope John II, “The Unspeakable Crime of Abortion,” in Evangelium Vitae, encyclical letter of John Paul II, March 25, 1995 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1995).Google Scholar
I say “virtually” because mutations can introduce minor differences between the two zygotes' DNA.Google Scholar
Here I make the standard assumption that identity is transitive: If A = B and B = C, then A = C.Google Scholar
I learned of the two competing models from Alfonso Gomez-Lobo.Google Scholar
See Gomez-Lobo, A., “On the Ethical Evaluation of Stem Cell Research: Remarks on a Paper by N. Knoepffler,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14 (2004): 75–80, at 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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He writes that “…the chromosomes in the two pronuclei duplicate themselves separately, and then copies from each come together inside the actual nuclei formed after the first cell division. It is within each of the two nuclei present in the two-cell embryo that a complete set of forty-six human chromosomes commingle for the first time,” Silver, L., Remaking Eden (New York: Avon, 1997): at 45.Google Scholar
Ibid, at 58.Google Scholar
In this paragraph I have benefited greatly from Silver, L., supra note 18, at 58–63.Google Scholar
In principle, artificial, delayed twinning by way of cloning remains possible.Google Scholar
The claim is developed in Gomez-Lobo, A., “Sortals and Human Beginnings” (unpublished manuscript). Gomez-Lobo's citations include the two that follow.Google Scholar
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Earlier I said it has the potential to develop in a way that produces one of us, not that it has the potential to become one of us.Google Scholar
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Another exciting possibility is to clone ESCs from people with particular diseases in order to produce a limitless source of cells that can be used to study these diseases without having to extract tissue samples from patients. Coghlan, A., “UK Cloners Target Diabetes Cure,” New Scientist (2004): 8–9.Google Scholar
Interestingly, the PCB recently recommended legislation that would prohibit “the use of human embryos in research beyond a designated stage in their development (between 10 and 14 days after fertilization),” President's Council on Bioethics, Reproduction and Responsibility (Washington, DC: PCB, 2004), Executive Summary: Xxxix-xlix, at xlviii. While not condoning the use of research embryos prior to this point, the PCB left the matter open: “Some members of the Council are opposed to any experimentation that harms or destroys embryos, but, recognizing that it is legal and active, they see the value in limiting the practice” Ibid.Google Scholar
See, e.g., Seller, M., “The Human Embryo: A Scientist's Point of View,” Bioethics 7 (1992): 135–140; Burgess, J. A. and Tawia, S. A., “When Did You First Begin to Feel It? – Locating the Beginning of Human Consciousness,” Bioethics 10 (1996): 1–26; Korein, J., “Ontogenesis of the Brain in the Human Organism: Definitions of Life and Death in the Human Being and Person,” Advances in Bioethics 2 (1997): 20–31, at 25–26; and Glover, V. and Fisk, N., “Fetal Pain: Implications for Research and Practice,” British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 106 (1999): 881–886.Google Scholar
See, e.g., Feinberg, J., Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984); Singer, P., Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. (New York: Avon, 1990); and Steinbock, B., Life Before Birth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). For my development of this approach, see DeGrazia, D., Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
See, e.g., Warren, M. A., Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
See, e.g., Boonin, D., A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003): at 45–49.Google Scholar
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Ibid, at 195–196.Google Scholar
A prominent example is Warren, M. A., “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” The Monist 57 (1973): 43–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
I first developed this argument in DeGrazia, D., “Identity, Killing, and the Boundaries of Our Existence,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (2003): 413–442, at 432–434; and I develop it more fully in Human Identity and Bioethics, supra note 6, chapter 7.Google Scholar
McMahan, , supra note 8, at 270–271.Google Scholar
McMahan develops this point very lucidly, supra note 8, at 170–171.Google Scholar
The present discussion should not be taken as even a rough sketch of my approach to the ethics of killing in general. My fuller view understands the ethics of killing not only in terms of the Time-Relative Interest Account for all beings with interests; it also includes a strong deontological presumption, grounded in respect for persons, against killing persons. Elsewhere I explain why I believe this framework does not have radical, intuitively unacceptable implications regarding infanticide. DeGrazia, D., Human Identity and Bioethics, supra note 6, at 290–293.Google Scholar