Say No to ‘Public Health’ Imperialism

The New York Times has a long — and, I must say, generally fair — discussion of the contentious issue of embryo research. I won’t belabor most of the issues raised, but I want to highlight one aspect of the column that illustrates how some “expert ethicists” consider it a part of their job to conjure ways to bust through established moral limits.

When embryonic research first started, we were told that there would be a strict 14-day limit on researching embryos in petri dishes. At the time, I said it was all baloney, that the “ethicists” established the “14-day rule” only because embryos couldn’t be kept viable in a dish after that time. In other words, they were prohibiting something that could not yet be done. But, I predicted, once the permitted research found ways to keep embryos going beyond 14 days, the rule would be repealed. And so it came to pass.

Now, apparently, to further facilitate an anything-goes embryonic-research license — and in light of the potential that embryos can be manufactured outside of fertilization — some “ethicists” are arguing that the definition of “embryo” should be revised. From, “The Embryo Question Can’t Be Ignored” (my emphasis):

In light of these advances, an ethicist and several biologists have proposed a new legal definition for “embryo” that emphasizes its potential to become a fetus rather than whether it originated via fertilization or it was created in a lab from stem cells. With embryo models growing in sophistication, they argued in a commentary in the journal Cell, the relevant question is not how they got here but where they are going. A redefinition may offer some conceptual clarity, but it highlights the oddness of this moment — one in which our scientific prowess has pushed boundaries so far that we need to reconceive of entities whose previous technical definition seemed self-evident.

Think about how this could work. If an embryo isn’t considered an embryo because it is to be used as research fodder rather than be gestated, then by the same sleight of hand, why not also say that a fetus used in lethal research isn’t really a fetus since it would never be born? Think of “fetal farming” potential!

(This redefinition tactic has been deployed to allow cognitively disabled patients to be declared “dead” or nonpersons to allow organ-harvesting and in the assisted suicide debate.)

This expedience ethics (if you will) epitomizes what has gone so wrong with contemporary moral deliberations. If long-standing definitions impede what researchers want, simply change the definitions.

No. Good ethics require honesty about what is being proposed and to what (or whom) it will be done upon. To put it another way, the morality of an action depends on what the subject is, not what it might or might not become.

Biologically, a human embryo is a human organism starting at the one-cell stage (zygote), meaning it is a nascent human being — and this is so whether he or she was created by fertilization, cloning, or the manipulation of stem cells.

That fact should be the basis of moral discourse. Anything less is just going through ethical-analysis motions to arrive at a predetermined answer.