Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
support machines or brain waves), or suffering from advanced Alzheimer's
disease. By contrast, a severed toe is not a human being since it was part of
a larger living entity.
Person.
All human beings may not qualify as persons. A person is a human
being who possesses a special dignity conferred upon her or him by other
human beings. With rare exceptions, the right to continued existence is
one aspect of personhood. There is no consensus on criteria for person-
hood. for some, the fertilized egg and a brain-dead individual on total life
support are persons, whereas, for others, one may need to be born or to
have brain waves to qualify as a person. Certain biotechnologies raise the
question of when during human development personhood should be as-
signed. We will examine different approaches and criteria for answering
this question.
Human Embryo Research Raises Ethical Issues
Are human blastocysts and earlier-stage embryos persons? Three biotech-
nologies force this question: (1) esC technology, (2) therapeutic cloning,
and (3)
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
All three require the ma-
nipulation and ultimate destruction or discarding of very early human em-
bryos growing in glass dishes. local, state, and national politicians, spokes-
persons for various religious groups, bioethicists, and others speak out
about the moral status of human embryos. These voices influence the di-
rection of biomedical research through the politics of its funding.
Embryonic Stem Cells: Personhood and the Human Embryo
emotion and reason both have a place in making moral decisions. strong
feelings on issues less weighty than personhood, such as whether profes-
sional athletes should be allowed to strike or whether handguns should be
registered, range widely, and reason does not guarantee agreement. scien-
tists often disagree on how to interpret the same experimental data, phi-
losophers disagree on why an act is right or wrong, and voters disagree on
what makes for good candidates. Can we find any common ground in the
human embryo debate? i suggest that we start with knowledge about some-
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