Moral Issues of Human Embryo Research

Abstract

In his essay “morals and primordials,” Louis M. Guenin's thesis is that the use of embryos in research is morally acceptable “not because experiment and derivation are distinguishable, but because both are permissible” ( Science's Compass, 1 Jun., p. [1659][1]). With regard to the position of the Catholic Church on this issue, however, Guenin does not follow the logic of his own argument. As he states, the Catholic Church does not hold in vitro fertilization, cryopreservation of embryos, or destruction of embryos to be morally permissible. Therefore, by his own logic, the Church should hold research on these embryos to be wrong—which it does. Guenin's counterargument, that because “in vitro fertilizations nonetheless occur” we are therefore morally justified in using the resulting embryos, is specious. This same argument—akin to “I didn't personally do it, and somebody else was going to do it anyway, so it's all right for me to benefit from it”—has been advanced to justify buying clothing made by sweatshop labor and to defend downloading child pornography from the Internet. The argument doesn't work in those cases, either. If it is wrong to create the “product” in the first place, then it's wrong to receive it and wrong to benefit from it. # Response {#article-title-2} Munn takes me to neglect complicity in wrongdoing. The putative wrong is in vitro fertilization (IVF). First, I observe that when it is wrong to effect x , it is not always wrong to benefit from x . The Catholic Church does not condemn research on donated abortal tissue if the investigator has in no way induced the abortion ([1][2]). Complicity is a function of the nexus between wrongdoer and accomplice. Consumers of the products of slavery and child pornography are complicit in such practices, if they are, because demand coaxes supply. But, for example, we do not regard parents as complicitous in all wrongdoing by their offspring. Stem cell science neither motivates nor facilitates IVF. On the other hand, stem cell investigation induces embryo destruction. After drawing attention to the moral nexus between immunosurgery to obtain blastomeres and the subsequent study of derived stem cells, I defend such immunosurgery as morally superior to what would otherwise occur. I urge that we not plunge epidosembryos ([2][3]) into autoclaves when, at the behest of epidosembryo donors, we can aid others by deriving stem cells. Second, one could reply that fertility patients effect no wrongdoing in which to be complicit. Catholic teaching disapproves of IVF on the grounds that it is nonconjugal and could lead to eugenics. Consider then a married woman who conceives nonconjugally with no thought of eugenics. Can anyone know that God disapproves? Alternatively, it may be objected that IVF is immoral precisely because it invariably orphans some embryos. That objection lacks force because clinicians either transfer or freeze IVF embryos before the 14 days of development needed to establish individuation, a necessary condition of personhood. Nor do possible persons correspond to embryos that will never enter a womb. Lastly, we have the case of creating embryos solely for use in research or therapy in aid of others. In this case no illicit reproduction occurs. Still, may it obtain that to every cell type corresponds a purpose, and that it is wrong to hijack gametes for a nonreproductive purpose? Aristotelian teleology has lost its former hold on our thought. We welcome instances in which cells prove beneficially adaptable. For gametes, we may find new medical uses. When consumed on day 5 in research or therapy, the products of combined gametes—and the products of somatic cell nuclear transfer—have not become persons. Esteem for life furnishes a compelling moral reason to create, donate, and use unenabled, unidividuated embryos in beneficent research and therapy. 1. [↵][4]Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae (Vatican City, 1987). 2. [↵][5]As I defined it in my Essay, an epidosembryo is a human embryo that “(i) was created in vitro in an assisted reproduction procedure, (ii) remained in storage after completion of all intrauterine transfers requested by the mother, and (iii) has departed parental control according to instructions to the attending physician that the embryo shall be given to research….”. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1062513 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [5]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text