Everyday Ethics

Although it has fallen off the map recently, the ethics of stem cell research continues to be an exceedingly popular topic in bioethics.  There is much fervor on both sides of the debate.  Proponents of stem cell research view its prohibition as a kind of medical and social malpractice, while its detractors equate it with infanticide.  Both of these views are extreme, but they are also beside the point.  There are no legitimate ethical issues regarding the harvesting of surplus embryos for stem cell research.

Before explaining how this rather bold claim could be true, I need to restrict its application.  Whether it would be morally acceptable to produce embryos for the sole and expressed purpose of harvesting stem cells from them is a complicated question that is easily as messy as the ethics of abortion, if not more so.  However, much of the current debate concerns whether or not surplus embryos originally intended for implantation into infertile couples ought to be utilized for stem cell harvesting.  This is the landscape of the present discussion, and it includes no genuine moral concerns.

The alleged case against utilizing existing embryos for stem cell harvesting helps to support the position that there is nothing ethically questionable about doing so.  First, one might argue that an embryo is essentially a person, and that we violate its right to life by harvesting embryonic stem cells from it.  A similar case is sometimes made with regard to unborn fetuses and their right to life.  We ought not harvest stem cells from embryos because we violate their right to life when we do so, and this right trumps any rights in favor of stem cell harvesting.

A similar type of argument might claim that we are using these embryos as a means to our end, thus violating the Kantian notion of personhood and its accompanying rights.  This argument and the one above turn on several key points.  Most important is the claim that an embryo is a person in the moral sense, a being that is capable of baring rights.  This would have to be personhood in the moral sense, not just the biological, since it’s not clear why simply being a human equates with moral standing or the possession of rights.  The case for regarding a fetus as a person in the relevant sense will not be discussed in detail here.  But it is a dubious one, to be sure, and to stretch it further to a cryogenically frozen embryo borders on the absurd.

An embryo has no accompanying uterus to house and nurture it, no potential future human life, and no maternal support system that could conceivably keep it alive.  The biological features of a fetus are not sufficient to argue for its “personhood”.  Certain environmental features and future potentialities must also be present, and a frozen embryo doesn’t have these.  Appeals to an embryo’s personhood fail.  The ethical issues surrounding stem cell research cannot be deontological, because they don’t directly involve a being that has rights of its own.

The ethical issues surrounding stem cell research also cannot be consequentialist, because the consequentialist evaluation tells for expanding, not restricting stem cell research.  If we harvest embryonic stem cells from surplus embryos, there are two possible outcomes.  Either this will lead to improvement in the lives of people with horrific, debilitating illnesses and injuries, or it won’t.  The potential benefit is both high and likely, while the consequences are minimal, and any that appear genuinely problematic are either unlikely or fantastical.  The consequences of harvesting embryonic stem cells clearly tell in favor of doing so.

Finally, and most problematic for those who oppose stem cell research on moral grounds, the fact that surplus embryos are currently either disposed of or stored indefinitely does not clearly represent a course of action that coincides with the purported moral significance of these embryos.  If embryos are persons in the moral sense, surely we should not throw them out as biowaste or incinerate them.  But we probably shouldn’t just keep them in storage forever either.  If we grant an embryo’s right to life, or it’s status as a person, we are not let off the ethical hook by continuing to either throw these “persons” in the trash or storing them like we would a block of cheese.  If surplus embryos are persons with a right to life, it’s not clear what we ought to do with them.

The ethics of embryonic stem cell research is a “sexy” topic in both bioethics and mass media, and with good reason.  The development of practical applications for embryonic stem cells is a golden calf for the medical sciences, carrying with it a level of promise not often seen.  And the moral issues are out there, once the conversation turns away from the benign question of whether we ought to harvest surplus embryos to the more challenging problem of whether we ought to produce and utilize this surplus intentionally.  But until that shift happens, the public debate regarding the ethics of embryonic stem cell research will remain nothing more than a publicity stunt.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.