Main   Terms   People   Interviews   Resources   Events

Question: What's in the Petri Dish, Property or Person?

One inescapable ethical question to be confronted has been formulated by Glenn McGee and Arthur Caplan, "What's in the dish?"Glenn McGee and Arthur L. Caplan, "What's in the Dish?" Hastings Center Report, 29:2 (March-April 1999) 36-38. One insightful point made by these two authors which we will not take up thoroughly... Is an oocyte hosting a transferred DNA nucleus a person, or a potential person? Is a fertilized ovum from an IVF clinic that has been borrowed in order to make a blastocyst a potential person; or is it merely a piece of property to be donated for destruction in medical research? If the blastocyst is a potential person because its trophechtoderm makes it totipotent, is each interior pluripotent hES cell less of a potential person just because it no longer has access to a trophoblast? Would the pluripotent hES cell be considered a potential person if we could discover how to turn on its trophoblast genes and make a placenta? Would these questions apply as well to hEG cells taken from an aborted fetus? Even if pluripotent hES and hEG cells could be removed from the list of potential persons, would their respective sources in destroyed blastocysts and aborted fetuses render their utilization unethical?

These questions are essential to evangelical Right-to-Life advocates and Roman Catholics who borrow categories from earlier stages in the abortion debate. Richard Land, who heads the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention objects to treating stem cells as property. "Human cells, tissues, and organs should not be commodities to be bought and sold in a biotech slave market." He adds, "Some researchers have established in their own minds an arbitrary lesser moral status for human beings in their embryonic stage of development."Cited in "Embryo Research Contested," by Denyse O'Leary, Christianity Today, 43:6 (May 24, 2999) 27.

The Roman Pontiff and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith attribute full human personhood and dignity and moral status to us from the moment of fertilization on. In order to avoid any slight of ethical hand that might compromise this firm position, the Vatican uses interchangeably terms such as 'zygote', 'pre-embryo', 'embryo', and 'foetus'.Donum Vitae or "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation; Replies to Certain Questions of the Day," in Bioethics , 3rd ed., edited by Thomas A. Shannon...

What is of indispensable value here for our ethical deliberation is the Vatican's unflinching resolve to protect the dignity of human personhood. Yet, the questions raised by stem cell research are more than this line of ethical deliberation is presently ready to handle. The Vatican's approach is like an ethical spray gun; whereas what we need in this instance is to paint with a fine pencil brush. We need to color within the lines, so that we avoid accidentally blotting out advances in the quality of human health and flourishing.

Email link | Printer-friendly | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Ted Peters

Topic Sets Available

AAAS Report on Stem-Cells

AstroTheology: Religious Reflections on Extraterrestrial Life Forms

Agency: Human, Robotic and Divine
Becoming Human: Brain, Mind, Emergence
Big Bang Cosmology and Theology (GHC)
Cosmic Questions Interviews

Cosmos and Creator
Creativity, Spirituality and Computing Technologies
CTNS Content Home
Darwin: A Friend to Religion?
Demystifying Information Technology
Divine Action (GHC)
Dreams and Dreaming: Neuroscientific and Religious Visions'
E. Coli at the No Free Lunchroom
Engaging Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: An Adventure in Astro-Ethics
Evangelical Atheism: a response to Richard Dawkins
Ecology and Christian Theology
Evolution: What Should We Teach Our Children in Our Schools?
Evolution and Providence
Evolution and Creation Survey
Evolution and Theology (GHC)
Evolution, Creation, and Semiotics

The Expelled Controversy
Faith and Reason: An Introduction
Faith in the Future: Religion, Aging, and Healthcare in the 21st Century

Francisco Ayala on Evolution

From Christian Passions to Scientific Emotions
Genetic Engineering and Food

Genetics and Ethics
Genetic Technologies - the Radical Revision of Human Existence and the Natural World

Genomics, Nanotechnology and Robotics
Getting Mind out of Meat
God and Creation: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives on Big Bang Cosmology
God, Humanity and the Cosmos: A Textbook in Science and Religion
God the Spirit - and Natural Science
Historical Examples of the Science and Religion Debate (GHC)
History of Creationism
Intelligent Design Coming Clean

Issues for the Millennium: Cloning and Genetic Technologies
Jean Vanier of L'Arche
Nano-Technology and Nano-ethics
Natural Science and Christian Theology - A Select Bibliography
Neuroscience and the Soul
Outlines of the Science and Religion Debate (GHC)

Perspectives on Evolution

Physics and Theology
Quantum Mechanics and Theology (GHC)
Questions that Shape Our Future
Reductionism (GHC)
Reintroducing Teleology Into Science
Science and Suffering

Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (CTNS/Vatican Series)

Space Exploration and Positive Stewardship

Stem-Cell Debate: Ethical Questions
Stem-Cell Ethics: A Theological Brief

Stem-Cell Questions
Theistic Evolution: A Christian Alternative to Atheism, Creationism, and Intelligent Design...
Theology and Science: Current Issues and Future Directions
Unscientific America: How science illiteracy threatens our future
Will ET End Religion?

Current Stats: topics: >2600, links: >300,000, video: 200 hours.