Medical Ethics: Stem Cell Technology Term Paper

This is (still, for the present time, at least), the law on medical procedures to terminate pregnancy, which are available (and eligible for federal funding assistance) to anyone whose personal religious beliefs allow them. Those whose religious beliefs prohibit abortion at any time after conception need never contemplate the procedure, but their religious position is not incorporated into U.S. law. Like abortion, Americans not opposed to stem cell research on religious principle should be permitted to explore its potential fully, without governmental restraint or governmental withholding of research funds available to medical researchers in general.

Before modern scientific methods allowed the more precise understanding of human gestation, both physicians and legal scholars relied on concepts like "quickening" to establish a stage of pregnancy where the fetus was considered to be a living person (Abrams & Bruckner, 1983). Modern medical techniques allow us to generate precise images of developing fetuses, and even to perform surgery in-utero long before a fetus would be viable outside the womb. Consequently, physiologists can observe fetal development closely enough to know with absolute certainty the precise point where specific anatomical features first begin to develop. The significance is that secular scientists are capable of outlining ethical principles for stem cell research based on our objective understanding of human development, not a-priori assumptions (Sagan, 1997).

Certainly, even the nonreligious understand that fetal tissue becomes a living person at some point before birth. None of them advocates research on unwanted growing fetuses. The central issue in stem cell research is research conducted on tissue that is cultivated in petri dishes long before it develops any identifiable human characteristics. To illustrate the nonsensical waste caused by current federal law, fertility clinics must destroy valuable embryonic tissue left over from fertility procedures instead of allowing it to be used as a source of embryonic stem cells, even with full consent of the donor parents. Unlike the legal standards defining the right of the government to interfere with personal liberty in the case of abortions, current federal guidelines on stem cell research prohibit the work that requires embryonic stem cells..

Secular scientists understand fully that there are legitimate ethical issues inherent in stem cell research even without religious definitions of where human life begins. The fundamental difference is that scientists use objective criteria to define those lines logically. For example, sentience (the ability to sense the external world) and consciousness are two examples of morally relevant objective criteria. While it is not possible to precisely pinpoint a moment of transition between fetal insentience and fetal sentience, it is perfectly possible to determine the latest certain point before the necessary cellular structure and organization makes fetal sentience possible (Sagan, 1997).

Ultimately, secular ethicists need worry only about causing pain to an organism capable of sensing it; and about protecting the "human rights" of organisms that possess the human characteristics that make a person from human tissue. They need not worry about the so-called "rights" of amorphous clumps of cells of embryonic tissue before it is even remotely recognizable, structurally, as possessing the most fundamental sensory mechanisms like a brain and nervous system, just because it contains "human" DNA.

Works Cited

Abrams, N., Buckner, M (1983) Medical Ethics: A Clinical Textbook and Reference for the Health Care Professions. Chicago University Press: Chicago

Kaku, M. (1999) Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond. Oxford University Press: New York

Sagan, C. (1997) Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and…