How should men and women who produce excess embryos using in vitro fertilization -- embryos which they do not intend to implant -- regard these so-called "spares"? What should they do about them? How should society think about them, and what should scientists be permitted to do to them in the search for new medical breakthroughs? This "embryo question" is not only vexing, it is paradoxical -- with the smallest of human things posing the biggest of human questions. We believe that the embryo question is not only central to modern bioethics, but also to defining the character of our technological, democratic civilization.
This collection brings together our work on the embryo question generally, and on the more specific issue of embryonic stem cell research.
ETHICAL STEM CELL RESEARCH
In 2005, a group of leading scientists and ethicists developed a proposal to create pluripotent stem cells without destroying human embryos, in the hope of breaking the current political stalemate over embryo research and moving the country forward in a way all citizens can embrace. The proposal has been spearheaded by Robert P. George, a member of EPPC's board of directors and the President's Council on Bioethics, and Dr. Markus Grompe, a leading stem cell scientist.
Production of Pluripotent Stem Cells by Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming
Joint Statement signed by 35 scientists and ethicists, June 20, 2005
Creative Science Will Resolve Stem-Cell Issues
By Robert P. George and Markus Grompe
"This method of obtaining human pluripotent stem cells would not only be morally unimpeachable (assuming nothing unethical is done in obtaining somatic cells or oocytes used in the process), it would have other important advantages over using so-called spare embryos left over from in vitro fertilization efforts." [Wall Street Journal, 20 June 2005, p. A14.]
A Possible Method of Producing Embryonic-Type Stem Cells May Break Political Impasse
EPPC press release, June 20, 2005
Human Cloning and "Altered Nuclear Transfer"
Joint Statement, February 24, 2006
"There is no conflict between research on ANT-OAR and the wording of the federal Human Cloning Prohibition Act."
For more information:
White Paper: "Alternative Sources of Pluripotent Stem Cells"
President’s Council on Bioethics
THE SOUTH KOREA CLONING SCANDAL
The Many Casualties of Cloning
By Richard M. Doerflinger
It would be a gross exaggeration to say that the recent cloning scandal in South Korea has "damaged the foundation of science" (as one investigative panel put it), but Hwang Woo Suk’s fraud does indeed offer important lessons about the direction of cloning research, the claims made by overenthusiastic research advocates, and the ethical lapses that now plague this whole area of biological science. Richard M. Doerflinger looks at the scientific, political, and moral lessons of the cloning scandal. [The New Atlantis, Number 12, Spring 2006, pp. 60-70.]
Embryonic Problems
By Eric Cohen and Robert P. George
The episode in South Korea was a clarifying moment, both scientifically and ethically. [National Review Online, 20 March 2006.]
Human Cloning and Scientific Corruption
South Korean cloning fraud Hwang Woo Suk has genuinely succeeded in at least one area -- unmasking some of the myths and fabrications behind the entire cloning enterprise, and bringing several key facets of the stem cell debate into unusually sharp relief. [The New Atlantis, Number 11, Winter 2006, pp. 113-117.]
Go Forth and Replicate
By Eric Cohen
The first cloned child is coming soon, and with it a new, terrible moment in the history of modern science. [The Weekly Standard, Volume 010, Issue 35, 23 May 2005.]
The Age of Cloning
Breakthrough in South Korea, Stalemate in the Senate
By the Editors of The New Atlantis
The recent announcement that researchers in South Korea have cloned the first human embryos may plunge bioethics back to the center of national politics. [The New Atlantis, Number 4, Winter 2004, pp. 97-98.]
FROM THE NEW ATLANTIS
Of Embryos and Empire
By Eric Cohen
There is something profoundly strange about the world’s only superpower, at such a time of global reckoning, concerning itself with so small a thing as the human embryo. But for that very reason, we can learn something important about American civilization from the embryo battles that vex us. Eric Cohen asks what is at stake in the embryo research debate, and what a responsible politics of the embryo might look like. [The New Atlantis, Number 2, Summer 2003, pp. 3-16.]
Symposium on the Embryo Question
The embryo question presents us with some of the essential dimensions and deep tensions in the American character -- including the devotion to technological progress, the fidelity to biblical morality, and the belief that all human beings are created equal. In the essays in this New Atlantis symposium, the authors explore the embryo question in full, seeking to guide the current policy debate and to grapple with more fundamental questions about out politics, our ideals, and our humanity. [The New Atlantis, Number 7, Fall 2004/Winter 2005.]
- Acorns and Embryos
Robert P. George and Patrick Lee on moral standing and bad metaphors
- The Tragedy of Equality
Eric Cohen on the uses of reason, the absurdity of disease, and the quest for justice
- Equality Reconsidered
CONFERENCE
Global State of Stem Cells and Cloning in Science, Ethics, and Law
In March 2005, the Bioethics and Democracy Program was pleased to cosponsor a major conference in Rome on stem cells: the ethical issues, the scientific options, the international perspective, and the theological debate, with opening remarks delivered by program director Eric Cohen.
POLITICS AND EMBRYO RESEARCH
Stem the Tide
What Congress should -- and shouldn't -- do.
By Eric Cohen and William Kristol
This week, the Senate will take up legislation already passed by the House (H.R. 810) to authorize federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells harvested by destroying human embryos left over in fertility clinics. Since August 2001, under a policy established by President Bush, federally funded research has been limited to embryonic stem cell lines that already existed. If the bill passes, the president will veto it. [The Weekly Standard, Volume 011, Issue 42, 24 July 2006.]
‘An Unknowable Atom of Human Flesh’
Henry Hyde and Joe Barton on the Ethics of Stem Cell Research
By the Editors of The New Atlantis
Frist's Stem Cell Capitulation
By Eric Cohen and William Kristol
The Embryo Wars
The U.N., Mitt Romney, and California Corruption
By the Editors of The New Atlantis
Unorthodox Endorsement
Judaism and embryonic stem cell research
By Eric Cohen
The Party of Cloning
The Democrats embrace the gospel of stem cells
By Eric Cohen
Sen. Kerry's Stem-Cell Fairy Tales
The candidate's misleading claims have created confusion about the complex issue and Bush's prudent policy
By Eric Cohen
Stem Cells and the Reagan Legacy
By Gilbert Meilaender
Stem cell research has become a wedge issue in American public life, but the dream of cures has obscured the hard ethical questions before us. Moving from Ron Reagan's speech at the Democratic National Convention to a children's story by C.S. Lewis, Gilbert Meilaender considers the dangers of hubris and the need for limits in the age of embryo research.
The Stem Cell Race
John Kerry and the Democrats Search for an Issue
By the Editors of The New Atlantis
Kerry's Zealotry
Extremism in Defense of Science is No Virtue
By Eric Cohen
President Bush's Stem Cell Policy is Appropriate
By Eric Cohen
Stem Cells and the Senate
As senators make moves, a walk through the stem-cell fray
By Eric Cohen
The Ethics of Stem Cells
Eric Cohen versus Arlen Specter
Campaigning for Stem Cells
Research Advocates Launch a New Offensive for Funding
By the Editors of The New Atlantis
Do Embryos Vote?
Stem Cell Politics in an Election Year
By the Editors of The New Atlantis
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