How is it Right to Treat the Human Embryo? The Embryo and Stem Cell Research

Abstract

This submission to the Australian Health Ethics Committee considers issues of “respect” and “potential” and argues that the embryo is to be respected because it is nascent and developing human life. Destructive experimentation, even for the purposes of stem cell research, should therefore not be permitted on embryos originally intended for implantation but now surplus to IVF needs. The goals for which they are being destroyed in experimentation are distant and uncertain, and professional practice in IVF now requires that no more than one or at most two embryos should be generated.