Transcript Slides - Workforce Development in Stem Cell Research

The Human Embryo: What’s in the Dish?
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The newly fertilized egg, a corpuscle one two-hundredth of an inch in
diameter, is not a human being. It is a set of instructions set adrift into the
cavity of the womb.
-E.O. Wilson
We will, slowly and by increments, have gone from stem cells to embryo farms
to factories with fetuses hanging (metaphorically) on meat hooks waiting to be
cut open and used by the already born.
-Charles Krauthammer
The Moral Status of the Human Embryo
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Does the embryo have a soul? Is it a human being? Is it a person?
The debate centers on the 2-4 day old human embryo, or blastocyst
Creation
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REVIEW: The Thomson Technique
Science, V282: 6 November 1998
1. Thaw IVF embryos
2. Remove the inner cell mass
3. Plate onto inactivated mouse fibroblast
feeder layers
4. Embryos are destroyed during this process
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REVIEW: In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
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1) After several weeks of taking hormones, eggs are
collected. Each cycle yields between 10-12 eggs
2) Eggs and sperm are added to complete fertilization
3) Embryos are grown to the blastocyst stage (4 days)
4) A few embryos are transferred to the uterus. Not all
embryos survive
5) Spare embryos are frozen for future use
Once the parents no longer want embryos, they can
1) Discard them
2) Donate them for research
3) Donate them to another couple (rare)
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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Consequentialism
• The moral consequences of someone’s acts determined by a
balancing exercise
• the right act is the one that gives the best result overall result
Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill)
• Calculating the benefits or harms and then adding them together.
• A moral good is achieved when the benefits outweigh the harms
“the greatest good for the greatest number.”
Beneficence
The moral obligation to act for the benefit of others. Medical
research and care is based on this principle.
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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Protect the embryo?
It is the weakest form of a human being, and has a right to life.
Kantian ethics: “Do no harm”: humanity has moral status
Do not use people as a mere means to an end
• Using citizens as human shields during warfare
• Stealing from a store owner
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of
any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. ”
—Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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Kantian Ethics
• Commands us to act in certain ways, irrespective of our desires:
universal laws based on rational thought: never lie, cheat or steal
• Predicated on our ability to reason and act as moral agents
• But children and infants are deserving of protection and respect—
are embryos, too?
• Example: Batten’s disease: a stem cell balancing act
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
Notions of sentience, consciousness, and development
Sentience
The capacity to feel pleasure and pain
Personhood
Begins around childhood
Consciousness
Perception, arousal, awareness, one’s identity
Human Development
Gradual process that includes “being in society”
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The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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The developmental view 1: embryos are persons
1. We were all embryos once
2. Human development is a seamless series of the same person
3. Destroy an embryo = kill a person
same person
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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Discussion Question: The development view
What can biology tell us about development and personhood?
1. Early human development: the neural streak
2. Sentience: First reflex activity
3. Consciousness: ability to use the pronoun “I”
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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The human relations view: are embryos persons?
• Persons are understood to be a part of society
1. George Annas’ “Embryo Rescue” thought experiment
2. Jewish tradition of “like water” prior to 40 days
3. Richard Rorty’s “society deems it” argument
4. Gilbert Mielander’s argument: “a person is simply someone ‘who’”
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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Potentiality and The Burden of Proof
“The merely possible personhood of the embryo may seem abstract or
theoretical in comparison with the concrete hopes for clinical
treatments.” But it is proof enough, he says. “[F]or all one knows,
they are persons, and should be treated as persons.”
- Robert Song
The Human Embryo: Moral Status
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Potentiality and the burden of proof
• The embryo may become a person someday. It has a potential
to be human. We should protect the embryo, because it may
become a potential person.
• If you can’t prove the embryo is not a person, then you should
protect it.
Discussion Question
Is it possible to protect potential people?
Christian views
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The Vatican and Conservative Catholics
• God bestows personhood (and a soul) at the moment of conception
• A unique combination of genes [fertilization] is enough to trigger
personhood
• In 2000, the Vatican wrote that removing the inner cell mass from an
embryo “is a gravely immoral act, and consequently is gravely illicit.”
Discussion Questions
1) Do we consider identical twins different persons?
1) What other positions has the Catholic Church held over time?
Other Religious Views
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Judaism
• Halachah: Jewish religious law and the duty to save a life and heal.
Embryonic stem cells must be used.
• Embryos have no moral status until 40 days old
Islam
• Ensoulment begins sometimes after early embryogenesis; but
embryos in IVF clinics may have sanctity
Buddhism
• Cloning is “recycling life” or reincarnation
• the early embryo not included in early Buddhist texts
The Brave New World
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“(T)he real threat of biotechnology is far more subtle and therefore harder to
weigh in any utilitarian calculus. It lies in the possibilities of human cloning,
“designer babies”—eugenic selection for intelligence, sex, and personality—
and eventually, the end of the human species as such.”
- Francis Fukuyama
The trouble with biotechnology: “the one-sided triumph of willfulness over
giftedness, of dominion over reverence, of molding over beholding.”
- Michael Sandel
“We ought to act in a beneficent way toward our fellow citizens, but there are
many ways of doing that, and medical research can claim no more of us
than many other worthy ways of spending our time and resources.”
- Dan Callahan
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The Brave New World
Brave new world (2): the wisdom of repugnance
• “We are repelled by the prospect of cloning human beings…because we
intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things
that we rightfully hold dear. Repugnance, here as elsewhere, revolts against
the excesses of human willfulness, warning us not to transgress what is
unspeakably profound…in which our bodies are regarded as mere
instruments of our autonomous rational wills, repugnance may be the only
voice left that speaks up to defend the central core of our humanity.
Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.”
- Leon Kass
Mini-Activity 1:
Understanding Moral Status
(Overview)
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Discuss with a classmate the “moral status” of ONE
of the following:
1.
A two-day-old human embryo (in vitro)
2.
A two-day old human embryo (in vivo)
3.
A culture of embryonic stem cells
Mini-Activity 1:
Understanding Moral Status
(Directions)
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• Include in your pair/group discussion the concepts of
sentience, becoming a person, and when life begins.
• You certainly don’t need to agree, but you need to
identify the criteria to use in deciding whether
something is a human being, an object, or something
in between.
• Discuss as a class how you determined the moral
status of the case you discussed.
Ethical Issues:
Concept Mapping Terms
References
Lecture notes (hyperlink)
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Add the key terms/concepts from today’s lecture to your
previous concept map. You should include (but are not
limited to) the following terms/concepts:
• Moral Status
• Sentience
• Beneficence
• Non-maleficence
• “Do no harm”
• Personhood
• The soul
• Halachah
• Dignity
Due Thursday, May 12.
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Activity 2:
Public Policy Panel Discussion
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Team 1: Pro-life/religious conservatives
Shaheen, Perri and Guatam
Team 2: Patient advocacy
Alina and Ben
Team 3: Women’s rights
Javier and Maddy
Team 4: Biotechnology
Lily and Brian
Team 5: The Brave New World
JD and Jamie
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Activity 2:
Public Policy Panel Discussion
References
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Search terms for Activity 2 (+ stem cell)
Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, consequentialism, Protestantism, Judaism,
Islam, Catholicism, “slippery slope”, dignity, personhood, right-to-life,
democrat, republican, women’s rights, embryo donation, CIRM, AAAS,
ISSCR, NIH, CAMR, Christopher Reeve Foundation, Michael J. Fox
Foundation, Sam Brownback, George W. Bush, Orrin Hatch, Michael
Sandel, Alta Charo, Jonathan Moreno, President’s Commission on
Bioethics, Art Caplan, Richard Doerflinger, Father Tad Pacholczyk, Leon
Kaas, New York Stem Cell Foundation, sentience, George Annas,
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Brave New World, IVF
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Ethical Issues:
Concept Mapping Terms
References
Lecture notes (hyperlink)
Activity notes (hyperlink)
More links…
Add the key terms/concepts from today’s lecture to your
previous concept map. You should include (but are not
limited to) the following terms/concepts:
• Moral Status
• Sentience
• Beneficence
• Non-maleficence
• “Do no harm”
• Personhood
• The soul
• Halachah
• Dignity
Due Thursday, May 12.
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Mini-Activity 2:
Use of Embryos for Research
(Overview)
Imagine you are at a party and meet up with a friend who
doesn’t know about the issues surrounding stem cell
biology. Using your knowledge of biology and stem cells,
describe one ethical or religious view about the use of
human embryos for research purposes.
References
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Mini-Activity 2:
Preparation for the Panel Discussion
(Directions)
References
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• Using your lecture notes, first jot down some main points.
• Meet with your partner (the friend at a party) and present your
“case” either for or against use of hESCs using the
ethical/religious arguments described in the text/lecture.
• Extension: Discuss to what extent you agree or disagree with
the ethical/religious view you presented.