The Moral Status of Embryo

1. The Moral Status of Embryo Hannah Chen

2. Arguments In Support of Fertilization as The Marker Event • The Feature of Fertilization Process 1.the genetic argument 2.the discontinuity/continuity argument 3. and the individuality argument • The Potentiality of Newly Formed Beings 1.respect for capacities of individuals argument 2.and consequentialist argument

3. The Feature of Fertilization Process Ⅰ Genetic Argument The only morally significant marker event is the formation of a human genotype. Since it is only at fertilization, not after or before, does a new genetic member of the Homo sapiens come into being, it is wrong to destroy early human life ever since that moment.

4. The Feature of Fertilization Process Ⅱ Discontinuity/Continuity Argument In contrast to fertilization event, post-fertilization development is constructed as a continuing process that is no way to isolate any one stage to attribute the attainment of moral status arbitrarily.

5. The Feature of Fertilization Process Ⅲ Individuality Argument It is because an individual human being with the unique genotype begins to exist after that, “it is the same individual right to life through from that moment onto the end.”

6. The Potentiality of EmbryosⅠArgument of “respect for capacities of individuals” potential to become Since embryo is a potential human being, a being with potential to become an adult like us, it is worthy of respect at the very beginning.

7. The Potentiality of EmbryosⅡ Consequentialist Argument potential to produce Due to the potential of embryo to produce a future human subject as its consequence, the present embryo bears moral weight not to interfere with.

8. A Substance-oriented View of Embryo • the Declaration on Procured Abortion: • “ From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already.”

9. Person as Substance • “a ‘person’ as subject is the ‘substance’, which serves as the transcendental foundation of any further development. If there were no unchanged substance behind the flux of permanent changes, the development of any ‘personal’ characteristics would be impossible.” • “The moral notion of a person and the metaphysical notion of a person are not separate and distinct concepts but just two different and unstable resting points on the same continuum.”

10. Epistemological Paradigm Shift • From Substance-oriented View to Function-oriented View • From View of Potential Individual Human Being to View of Material of Life

11. Some Reasons for the Shift • Triploid zygotes • viable individuals with 47 chromosomes • mutation, mosaic organism resulting from chromosomal non-disjunction • identical twin, conjoined twin, fetus in fetu, and chimera • embryo vs. embryo proper • the suspected dichotomy of somatic cell and fertilized egg • individual identity problem

12. Metaphorical Thinking in ES Cells Research: An Example • In “Alternative Sources of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells”, four different approaches are proposed by scientists to take place of traditional resources of human embryonic stem cells. It has been suggested to derive stem cells: • 1) by extracting cells form embryos already dead; • or 2) by non-harmful biopsy of living embryos; • or 3) by extracting cells from artificially created non-embryonic but embryo-like cellular systems (engineered to lack the essential elements of embryo-genesis but still capable of some cell division and growth); • or 4) by dedifferentiation of somatic cells back to pluripotency.

13. Approach I • how can we identify the “organismic death” and justify the reasonable criteria? • Even if arrested embryo is considered as death, since the vital cells abstracted from it, might resume dividing if extracted and placed in the proper milieu, since these cells can still be identify as the continuum of the original one according to the same genotype, can we be so sure that such an embryo is really dead?

14. Approach Ⅱ • It is not clear when in embryonic development such totipotency of the blastomere disappears. • In terms of the potency, the very same blastomere might be viewed as only one cell of the embryo under one condition, or as another embryo under the other condition.

15. Approach Ⅲ • Even though the biological artifact is not an organism, lack of organized development form the earliest stages of cell differentiation, doubts still exist. • People are concerned whether the artifact is “defective embryo” rather than “non-embryonic entities”.

16. Approach Ⅳ • It might lead to the converse argument of individual identity in embryo debate. • In theory, within the round serial of both backward and forward developments, a somatic cell would be eventually established as a grown-up with the help of advanced bio-tech.

17. Seven Conceptions of Personhood • Appeal to Creation Conception • Appeal to Rites Conception • Appeal to Rights Conception 1 standard of species 2 potentiality 3 sentience 4 brain function 5 awareness of self as a continuing entity

18. New Metaphorical Thinking on the Way • We need to really think through and through what kind of respect is due for embryo. And this task could not be done without using moral imagination. • Moral imagination needs to be metaphorical in the sense of being alerted to the constant necessity of stretching ourselves beyond the present identity and context that we have.

19. Metaphor, “the locus of our imaginative exploration of possibilities for action,” enters into our moral deliberations in three ways, • “1) It gives rise to different ways of conceptualizing situations. 2) It provides different ways of understanding the nature of morality as such. 3) Metaphors also constitutes a basis for analogizing and moving beyond the clear or prototype cases to new cases.”

20. What kind of implications might be induced from the “function-oriented”“material of life” view? • event vs. substance • limited status vs. full status • beyond 14 days vs. before 14 days

21. The End Thank you for your attention.