Hoity-toity morality and embryos for research

Abstract

Do you, dear reader, care about human pre-embryos – embryos during the first 14 days of development? Do you know that most pre-embryos never implant and are routinely excreted from women’s bodies – without the women ever knowing of the pre-embryos’ existence? Does anybody care about all these millions and millions of ‘exterminated’ pre-embryos? Well, apparently some bioethicists do care about pre-embryos – but specifically research pre-embryos in lab dishes. (None of the former, however, have suggested any serious plans to rescue the millions of in vivo pre-embryos that perish after having been excreted.) In South Africa, these righteous ethics elders have, via the new National Health Act, ensured that if scientists wish to do medical research on pre-embryos, they will need the permission of nobody less than the Minister of Health. This section of the Act has, however, already been on ice for several years, while the Department of Health is still trying to write regulations. We can just hope that the eventual regulations will not create too steep a bureaucratic mountain for scientists to climb. It is not as if South Africa is teeming with scientific activity – innovation output has completely stagnated during the past decade, meaning that South Africa has fallen far behind in relative terms. 1-3