Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to revolutionise both the practice of medicine and our understanding of the human body. Although the usual technical and financial limitations of research apply, perhaps the greatest obstacle to the progress of this research at the present time is the ethical concerns surrounding the destruction of early human embryos. The established debate over the ethical significance of the early embryo has thus taken on renewed importance.
Within biology stem cell research has begun to overturn some long held assumptions about the roles of genes and cellular interaction in development. Building on recent advances in stem cell biology I develop a concept of Form that neatly captures what it is to be individuals like us in biological terms. Form not only defines a biological individual that exists across time regardless of changes in its physical constituents but also provides the biological foundation for our higher mental properties and our identity as persons.
At the heart of the embryo debate is confusion over what human individuals are and therefore when they began. Defining when we began as the ethically significant individuals that we are now is the key to the embryo debate. Our metaphysics of identity is thus crucial to understanding the moral significance of the embryo.
Compared to alternative understandings of identity within the debate surrounding the embryo Form provides compelling reasons why the very early embryo, at the stage that embryonic stem cells are derived, lacks any right to life or associated ethical significance. The derivation of embryonic stem cells is thus found to be ethically permissible.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217749 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Copland, Paul S, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Dunedin School of Medicine |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Paul S Copland |
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