Experimenting with embryos: Can philosophy help?

Bioethics

Volumn 10, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 292-309

  Heyd, David ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; ARTICLE; ATTITUDE; BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; EMBRYO; EMBRYO DISPOSITION; EMBRYO RESEARCH; ETHICS; FETAL TISSUE TRANSPLANTATION; FETAL WELL BEING; GENETICS AND REPRODUCTION; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; INDIVIDUALITY; INFERTILITY THERAPY; INTERDISCIPLINARY COMMUNICATION; MORALITY; PEDIGREE; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH; PHILOSOPHY; POLICY; POLITICS; PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT; PSYCHOLOGY; PUBLIC RELATIONS; RESEARCH; RESEARCH SUBJECT; RISK; RISK ASSESSMENT; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CONTROL; SOCIOECONOMICS;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; BIOMEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; GENETICS AND REPRODUCTION; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH;

ATTITUDE; EMBRYO; EMBRYO DISPOSITION; EMBRYO RESEARCH; EMBRYONIC AND FETAL DEVELOPMENT; ETHICAL ANALYSIS; ETHICS; FETAL TISSUE TRANSPLANTATION; FETAL VIABILITY; HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION; HUMANS; INDIVIDUALITY; INTERDISCIPLINARY COMMUNICATION; INTERPROFESSIONAL RELATIONS; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; NONTHERAPEUTIC HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION; PEDIGREE; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHY; POLITICS; PSYCHOLOGY; PUBLIC POLICY; REPRODUCTIVE TECHNIQUES, ASSISTED; RESEARCH; RESEARCH EMBRYO CREATION; RESEARCH SUBJECTS; RISK; RISK ASSESSMENT; SOCIAL CONTROL, FORMAL; SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY; THERAPEUTIC HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION; VALUE OF LIFE;

EID: 0030257087     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8519.00030     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. See, for instance, "The Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology", reprinted in M. Warnock, A Question of Life, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985; and the Israeli Report of the Public-Professional Commission on IVF, Jerusalem: The Ministry of Health, 1994 (in Hebrew).
2. See, for instance, "The Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology", reprinted in M. Warnock, A Question of Life, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985; and the Israeli Report of the Public-Professional Commission on IVF, Jerusalem: The Ministry of Health, 1994 (in Hebrew).
3. K. Dawson, Human Embryo Experimentation, Australia: The National Bioethics Consultative Committee, 1990, p. 34.
4. I am referring to the slippery slope argument as a psychological source of our intuitive objection to embryo experimentation, since despite its popularity in ethical debates on the topic, I believe that it is not a valid philosophical argument. The most balanced analysis of slippery slope arguments and their fallacious applications is B. Williams, "Which Slopes Are Slippery?", in M. Lockwood (ed.), Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 126-37.
5. It has also been noted that the viability test might lead to the paradoxical conclusion that experimentation with in vitro embryos should be allowed only after the first fourteen days, since only at that stage they become non-viable! For a view which supports the viability criterion as superior to the fourteen-day limit, see F. Baylis, "The Ethics of Ex Utero Research on Spare 'Non-Viable' Human Embryos", Bioethics 4, 1990, 311-29. The "logical oddity" in the concept of viability is also noted by LeRoy Walters in his "Ethical Issues in Experimentation on the Human Fetus" Bioethics (ed. T.A. Shannon), New York: Paulist Press, 1976, p. 276.
6. It has also been noted that the viability test might lead to the paradoxical conclusion that experimentation with in vitro embryos should be allowed only after the first fourteen days, since only at that stage they become non-viable! For a view which supports the viability criterion as superior to the fourteen-day limit, see F. Baylis, "The Ethics of Ex Utero Research on Spare 'Non-Viable' Human Embryos", Bioethics 4, 1990, 311-29. The "logical oddity" in the concept of viability is also noted by LeRoy Walters in his "Ethical Issues in Experimentation on the Human Fetus" Bioethics (ed. T.A. Shannon), New York: Paulist Press, 1976, p. 276.
7. I believe that the third criterion mentioned above, brain activity or sentience, might prove equally "self-defeating" once we reach better knowledge about it in the future. The nature of primitive brain activity in the developing fetus might turn out to be detached from any form of sentience in the subjective sense of "feeling pain". And will the mind-body gap ever allow us to observe the moment at which the fetus starts feeling pain (rather than exhibiting mere "pain-behaviour")? For the view that brain activity marks the beginning of life and its implications for the morality of embryo research, see M. Lockwood, "When Does Life Begin?" in M. Lockwood (ed.), Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 29-31. Lockwood allows for experimentation on embryos even after the development of the brain, as long as they are not viable, do not suffer pain and were not created deliberately for the purpose of research. The criterion of viability is, I believe, problematic, as is the criterion of deliberate creation (see below); but the test of feeling pain seems to be valid.
8. For a detailed and systematic discussion of the whole complex of the moral standing of "potential" people and the paradoxes in ascribing rights or interests to them, see my Genethics: Moral Issues in the Creation of People, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, particularly chap.
9. The radical thesis which denies the ascription of rights to potential people is of course philosophically contested, and of course much of the force of the argument in this section depends on the validity of the "person-affecting" view defended in the book and followed here.
10. Some research which is risky in terms of the embryo's chances of survival is aimed at reducing the risk for the mother in the course of IVF treatment. This is a case in which the health of the mother (rather than her wish to have a baby) is promoted through embryo experimentation. Cf. B. Gaze and K. Dawson, "Who Is the Subject of Research?" in P. Singer et al. (eds.), Embryo Experimentation Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 109-124.
11. P. Singer and K. Dawson, "IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential" in Embryo Experimentation (quoted above). Singer and Dawson add to these challenges to the potentiality principle that if potentiality is understood in terms of natural development (rather than the probability of actualization), then embryos in vitro have no moral standing since they cannot survive without deliberate human intervention (p. 87).
12. This claim is very clearly articulated in S. Buckle, "Arguing from Potential" Bioethics 2, 1988, 227-53. Buckle distinguishes between x's potential to become y (which assumes x=y) and x's potential to produce y (which does not assume such identity). Now, if y is the entity which has moral standing, there is no moral duty to respect x, either because it is not identical with y (which is the case in the first fourteen days of the pre-embryo), or because it has no moral standing of its own but only the capacity to produce an entity with such a standing.
13. R. Dworkin, Life's Dominion, London: Harper Collins, 1993. Dworkin does not discuss embryo experimentation specifically, but his argument concerning the abortion of fetuses at a later stage directly bears upon our topic.
14. D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, part IV; and D. Heyd, Genethics (quoted above), pp. 80-90.
15. D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, part IV; and D. Heyd, Genethics (quoted above), pp. 80-90.
16. In a useful study of the way various ethical committees throughout the world have addressed the problems of the regulation of new reproductive technologies LeRoy Walters found that four committees recommended a total ban on embryo research and eleven allowed for some forms of research. Of this latter group, most committees favoured research only on "spare" embryos, i.e. those left over in clinical treatment, while other committees (like the Warnock) allowed research on embryos deliberately created for this purpose. LeRoy Walters, "Ethics and New Reproductive Technologies: An International Review of Committee Statements" Hastings Center Report, June 1987, p. 8.
17. For a different objection to the distinction between spare and deliberately created embryos, see P. Braude, "Research on Early Human Embryos in vitro", in G.R. Dunstan and E.A. Shinebourne (eds.), Doctors 'Decisions, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 39-40. Braude observes the alternative to experimentation with spare embryos is their freezing (with the goal of ultimately finding a "host" for them). But this option is no less problematic from an ethical point of view, since we do not know how freezing affects the viability and health of the future embryo. The important general point raised by Braude is that it is unethical to submit an embryo to a clinical ("therapeutic") procedure on the basis of a method of trial and error rather than on the basis of a systematic and scientifically guided research.
18. J. Harris, "Embryos and Hedgehogs: On the Moral Status of the Embryo" in A. Dyson and J. Harris (eds.), Experiments on Embryos, London: Routledge, 1990, pp. 65-81. Harris makes a good case for the equal standing of "spare-"and "research embryos" (pp. 77-8).
19. This is a good reason for including a philosopher in bioethical committees. Mary Warnock, whose contribution as a philosopher to the working of ethical committees has been of much significance, expresses a modest view of the function of ethical committees and the unavoidably compromising nature of their recommendations. A Question of Life (quoted above), pp. 95-100.
20. A typical example is Dr. Edwards, one of the two pioneers of IVF. Edwards takes a straightforward utilitarian stand regarding experiments on embryos, arguing that the chance of preventing abortions of five-months old fetuses justifies conducting experiments on one-week old pre-embryos. See his "Ethics and Embryology: The Case for Experimentation", in A. Dyson and J. Harris (eds.), Experiments on Embryos (quoted above), pp. 48f.
21. For an illuminating discussion of the role of the philosopher in ethical committees see W. Kymlicka, "Moral Philosophy and Public Policy", Bioethics 7, 1993, 20-22. Kymlicka argues that the importance of philosophical fine-tuning should not be exaggerated, and that sometimes, as in the case of the fourteen-day limit, behind the philosophically fallacious arguments there might be sound moral sensitivity.