Potentiality and human embryos

Bioethics

Volumn 21, Issue 7, 2007, Pages 379-385

  Lizza, John P ^a  

^a KUTZTOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Abortion; Embryo; Possibility; Possible; Potential; Potentiality; Stem cell research

Indexed keywords

ABORTION; ANALYTIC METHOD; ARTICLE; BIOETHICS; EMBRYO DEVELOPMENT; HUMAN; HUMAN EMBRYO; HUMAN RIGHTS; INTRAUTERINE CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICE; LAW; MATURATION; MORALITY;

ABORTION, INDUCED; BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE; BIOETHICS; EMBRYO RESEARCH; EMBRYO, MAMMALIAN; FEMALE; GOVERNMENT REGULATION; GREAT BRITAIN; HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS; HUMANS; LEGISLATION, MEDICAL; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; PERSONHOOD; PREGNANCY;

EID: 34547439225     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: 14678519     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00572.x     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. President's Council on Bioethics. 2002. Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry. Washington, D.C. U. S. Government Printing: 175.
2. Joel Feinberg. 1974. The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations (Appendix: The Paradoxes of Potentiality). In Philosophy and Environmental Crisis. W. T. Blackstone ed. Athens, GA: U of Georgia Press: 67-68.
3. Aristotle. Metaphysics IX 7, 1048b35-1049b1.
4. David B. Annis. Abortion and the Potentiality Principle. South J Philos 1984 22: 155 163.
5. Edward Covey. Physical Possibility and Potentiality in Ethics. Am Philos Q 1991 28 (3 237.
6. Ibid.
7. Covey, op. cit. note 2, 240.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid: 241.
11. Ibid.
12. In some cases, we may have the knowledge and technology to save the embryo. For example, we could flush the scarred uterus, harvest the embryo, and implant it into a surrogate. However, the fact that we simply have the knowledge and technology to do this does not imply that all such embryos have the potential for further development. The knowledge and technology would have to be available, not simply hypothetically, but in a realistic way and timeframe. If it were not, the embryo would lack the realistic potential for further development. Consider, for example, the difference in realistic potential between an embryo in a woman with a damaged uterus who is about to undergo uterine flushing and embryo harvesting at a reputable clinic and an embryo in a woman with the same uterine condition but who is so far from medical care that it is practically impossible to save the embryo. Consider also the difference in potentiality between a frozen embryo preserved in a facility with power and one preserved in a facility that has lost its power and where there is no possibility of restoring the power to save the embryo. In these cases, features of the embryo's physical environment and external factors combine to limit the potentiality of the embryo. To claim that the embryos in these imperiled circumstances still have the potential to develop would be to ignore the actual conditions that realistically restrict their possibilities.
13. Gene Outka. Transcript of Testimony before President's Council on Bioethics, April 25, 2002. Available at: http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/ apr02/apr25session3.html [Accessed June 10 2004].
14. I thank a referee of this journal for raising this objection and formulating the counterexamples (1) and (2) that follow.