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Ethical responses to Embryo Research

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Utilitarianism

Kant

Natural Law

Situation Ethics

Virtue Ethics

 

Utilitarianism

It may be assumed that utilitarianism would have no problem with using spare embryos - they would otherwise be discarded, and if we get any use out of them at all, the end justifies the means. This reasoning appears pretty sound, and is probably the sort of argument used to justify embryo research. In America, where the amount of research has slowed significantly under Bush's administration (his Christian beliefs have been held by some to be responsible), the majority of pro-life Christians actually support embryo research because of the potential benefits.

It would be easy to assume that utilitarianism would therefore support the creation of embryos for research. No harm is being done (embryos feel no pain), and much good could be done. Every aborted foetus could yield hundreds of eggs from which hundreds of embryos could be produced.

However, if we move past Bentham's theory, which recognised only pleasure as being of value, we would need to ask whether an embryo has any interests. Certainly some people would argue that it is in an embryo's interests to be implanted. The counter-argument is that embryos have no interests, but if you look at how far Singer is willing to assign interests in terms of the environment, this may not be such an easy argument to win.

Further, when doing a utilitarian calculation, you would need to weigh up different possibilities. For an embryo, wouldn't the outcome be better if you attempted to implant it rather than experiment on it? This argument is more easily dismissed, as the embryo was never going to be implanted. You are choosing between creating it and experimenting on it, and not creating it at all.

Kant's Ethical Theory

Kant's theory takes a suggested maxim and universalises it, seing whether one could will the maxim as a universal law of nature. The destruction of embryos would be contrary to this, and no amount of positive consequences could justify this. To be clear about why this is, imagine if embryos were experimented on as a law of natue. If this was the case, I might never have been born. This doesn't require any assumption about the status of an embryo, merely the recognition that my genetic code was distinct from the earliest stages, and therefore to destroy or experiment on an embryo would be to prevent a specific person from being born.

This may not apply if an embryo is created artificially, for example to produce embryonic stem cells. The question is whether the embryo could have developed into a rational being. If it could, that rational being could not will the destruction of artificially created embryos, and therefore none of us should.

 

Natural Law

The Catholic Church teaches that an embryo should be treated as a human being from the moment of conception. Natural Law supports this, and the Primary Precept 'Protect and preserve the innocent' would mean that anything done to an embryo that would prevent it from developing would be seen as wrong.

This response is not entirely based on the assumtion of the value of an embryo from conception. A different way of finding out what Natural Law thinks is by asking what the purpose is of somethng. The purpose of human life is summed up by the primary prescetps. However, the purpose of an embryo can be considered separately. It is designed to grow into a person, so it would be wrong to experiment on an embryo.

Situation Ethics

The principle of agape love is usually used by situationists to argue against moral absolutes such as 'do not kill'. Situation Ethics is relativist - individual circumstances can justify going against principles such as "Do not destroy embryos". As with utilitarianism, the end can justify the means. "If the end doesn't justify the means", Fletcher asked, "what does?"

Personalism, one of the four principles Fletcher's of Situation Ethics, is the belief that people are important. Embryonic stem cell research could potentially help millions, which would make it morally justifiable. It is not clear what value a situationist would give to an embryo - situation ethics does not give specific guidance, saying that the right course of action would be to do the loving thing in any situation. A situationist who believed the embryo was a person would respond very differently from one who didn't - the theory cannot be used to comment on the status of the embryo, merely on what to do if the embryo were a person.

Virtue Ethics

As is often the case, Virtue Ethics is the most difficult theory to apply here. Virtue Ethics tells us what sort of people we should strive to be, and how to become such a person. When considering embryo research, one should be courageous, temperate, kind, as well as acting justly, with wisdom. The theory can't tell us what a wise person would do, but, being wise, the wise person whould know!

The concept of eudaimonia may be helpful here. Stem cell research offers cures to paralysis, Parkinson's disease, and many other seriously debilitating conditions. These conditions are not part of the eudaimonian ideal. Eudaimonia is complete happiness, and such a state would not be possible with the agony of such conditions. Just as we should strive to develop our character, we should prevent things that stand in the way of eudaimonia.

MacIntyre's approach is worth commenting on here. He attempts to understand a dilemma in its context, believing that having a better understanding of an issue helps us in making the right choice. This approach o embryology can be found on the excellent Canadian website ReligiousTolerance.org. This website sets out to explain the ethics surrounding controversial issues. With many of these issues, it is difficult to find a source that is without bias. ReligiousTolerance.org manages to stay impartial. As such, it does not say that euthanasia or abortion or same-sex marriage is right or wrong. It presents the facts, explains the different viewpoints and says why people disagree.

On the issue of embryo research, ReligiousTolerance.org makes one point very strongly. Pro-life groups actively protest against stem-cell research (which could benefit millions) but make little fuss about IVF (which helps only individual couples). They say:

... in addition to the hundreds of thousands of embryos that have been deep-frozen in fertility clinics, there is speculation that hundreds of thousands of additional unused embryos have been actively destroyed. 2 But very few of pro-life demonstrations are directed at the labs that have killed these massive numbers of embryos. Attention has been concentrated on the few dozen embryos whose stem cells were removed and used to create cultures in medical research labs.

We are at a loss to understand why pro-lifer leaders in the U.S. have concentrated on the few dozen embryos used in stem cell
research, while almost ignoring the hundreds of thousands of embryos who have died in other ways in IVF clinics.

[read the full article]

Even though MacIntyre is a relativist, he may argue against the way stem cell research is targetted, using much the same approach as above.

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