Stem Cell Research: Ethics and Advocacy

Date: 

Thursday, October 3, 2002, 4:30pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

Starr Auditorium, Belfer Building, KSG

Speaker: Rebecca Dresser, Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law

Co-sponsored with the Division of Medical Ethics, HMS.

Summary by Sara B. Olack, Graduate Fellow in Ethics 2002-2003

Human embryonic stem cell research has fueled an intense degree of public attention and controversy in recent years. In Stem Cell Research: Ethics and Advocacy, Rebecca Dresser argues that stem cell research raises a complex array of ethical questions, questions too often oversimplified or ignored in popular discussion of the use that may be made of human embryos in medical research. Dresser was a member of President George Bush's Council on Bioethics, and in this talk she discussed some of the Council's conclusions.
In order for embryonic stems cells to be used in scientific research, a human embryo must be destroyed. This fact raises a host of familiar and difficult moral questions. Is it ethical to destroy a human embryo in order to make its stem cells available for research? Is killing a human embryo like killing an ordinary human child or adult? If human embryos aren't the same as persons, does this mean we should regard them as having the status of property? If so, does this mean that anything may be done to them? Dresser responds to these questions by endorsing what she calls the Special Respect View. On this view, the status of embryos falls somewhere in between that of persons and property, and this means that not just anything may be done to them. In the first part of her talk, Dresser asks what the Special Respect View implies about the use of embryos in scientific research. How is the idea that human embryos are due a certain kind of respect to be put in practice in research settings? Dresser suggests that one way in which a society can show its respect for human embryos is by prohibiting their use in certain kinds of research. Another way is by prohibiting their commodification. On the view she defends, proposals for the use of embryos in scientific research must demonstrate that that research is likely to have a significant impact on an area of major human concern; for example, that it will contribute to medical understanding of a serious human disease. In addition, she argues that embryos may be used in such research only if the medical and scientific goals it furthers are unlikely to be achieved through alternative means.
Dresser thinks that stem cell research raises a variety of important moral questions other than that of the embryo's moral status, and she argues that these questions are underdiscussed in current political debates. Among these are issues of distributive justice. Given that millions of people in the United States and throughout the world do not have access to existing and proven medical therapies, we face pressing questions as to how much to spend on stem cell research, how much this research should focus on regenerative therapies, and how we will provide access to the treatments that may result from it. In her talk, Dresser drew our attention to these questions and she clarified many of the considerations we need to take account of if we are to answer them responsibly.