This is a very lengthy document, but one of major importance at this time.
To: All
2 posted on
06/12/2003 6:58:54 PM PDT by
RadioFR
To: All
Another important excerpt:
2. Respect for the human embryo as a developing human life.
To some, the principle that the human embryo is among the human beings who deserve protection from research risks may not seem a consensus value. Yet four major advisory groups recommending federal policies on human embryo research over the past 23 years have agreed on this principle – or claimed to agree on it. For example, the Ethics Advisory Board to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare concluded in 1979 that the early human embryo deserves "profound respect" as a form of developing human life (though not necessarily "the full legal and moral rights attributed to persons").12 The NIH Human Embryo Research Panel agreed in 1994 that "the preimplantation human embryo warrants serious moral consideration as a developing form of human life."13 In 1999, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) cited broad agreement in our society that "human embryos deserve respect as a form of human life."14 And in 2002, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences acknowledged that "from fertilization" the embryo is "a developing human."15
None of these bodies could be described as having been appointed with any input from pro-life groups. The EAB was appointed under President Carter, the NIH panel and NBAC under President Clinton, and the NAS panel, of course, by NAS's leadership. Moreover, all these bodies wanted to authorize at least some research involving destruction of human embryos – in the case of the NIH panel, it was publicly announced at the outset that approval of embryo research was its mandate, and that anyone who objected to such research on moral grounds was ineligible to serve on it.16 These bodies all nonetheless conceded that the subject of embryo research is a developing human life, because this fits best with the evidence. (See the Appendix for an overview of the biological evidence on the status of the human embryo.).
While it makes no sense to say that any of us was once a body cell, or a sperm, or an egg, it makes all the sense in the world to say that each of us was once an embryo. For the embryo is the first stage of my life history, the beginning of my continuous development as a human organism. This claim makes the same kind of sense as the claim that I was once a newborn, although I do not have any recollection of cognitive or specifically human "experiences" during that stage of life.
This is distinct from the question whether the embryo has the moral status of a person. However, one need not make claims about personhood to understand a moral obligation to respect and protect developing human life. Without making such claims, for example, federal regulations since 1975 have treated the human embryo in the womb (from the time of implantation onward) as a human subject to be protected from research risks. Moreover, by secular reasoning one can make a strong case in favor of treating every fellow member of the human species as a person. Indeed, any other standard – assigning personhood on the basis of appearance, cognitive ability, etc. – will exclude many more people from personhood than just the embryo. This is readily apparent from the writings of ethicists who have started out to justify early abortion, and have found themselves unable or unwilling to make an absolute or principled case against infanticide or euthanasia.
The Catholic moral tradition does urge us to treat each and every living member of the human species, including the early embryo, as a human person with fundamental rights, the first of which is the right to life. But even the less exalted claims made by these past advisory panels – "profound respect" and "serious moral consideration" – say a good deal about the ways the human embryo should not be treated. "Respect" is due to individuals who have inherent worth, who must be seen as ends in themselves and not merely as means. This should mean, at the very least, inviolability from direct lethal attack in the pursuit of benefits for others. (You may value the family pet, for example, but you respect your child, so you know which of the two must never be sacrificed for a dangerous nontherapeutic experiment.)
Tragically, some advisory panels that found the embryo worthy of "respect" then proceeded to set this finding aside when they made their policy recommendations. The NIH Human Embryo Research Panel, for example, favored a view that the embryo chiefly has "symbolic" value as a kind of harbinger of later human life – or has no inherent value at all, but can be assigned a status based on how beneficial it may be to destroy the embryo for research. In light of the fact that the Panel approved a wide array of lethal experiments on human embryos -- including some which required specially creating embryos solely to destroy them – even some panelists publicly observed that the Panel had come to use the word "respect" merely as a "slogan" with no moral force. 17
3 posted on
06/12/2003 7:01:15 PM PDT by
cpforlife.org
(“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6)
To: Cathryn Crawford
Ping for your research files
8 posted on
06/12/2003 8:44:01 PM PDT by
MHGinTN
(If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote Life Support for others.)
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