Stem Cell Research and the Role of the New President's Council on Bioethics

dish is thus equivalent to allowing the embryo to die. If stem cells are then retrieved from the embryos that have expired, the retrieval is morally analogous to retrieval of vital organs from those who are newly deceased. Embryos in a petri dish may be killed by deliberately discarding them into the lab sink or adding a lethal compound to the medium surrounding them in the petri dish. Alternatively, they may be allowed to die in a respectful or disrespectful manner. Just as some people are allowed to die in a morally reprehensible way (e.g., when death is probably avoidable without extraordinary interventions), allowing embryos to die may be wrong if their probability of survival is high without extraordinary interventions. Since this is not the case, embryos may be allowed to die in a respectful manner; they may even be buried with an accompanying ritual, just as born humans are sometimes allowed to die and be buried with appropriate rituals. There seems, then, to be an ethical bypass to the dilemma faced by those who wish to avoid the direct killing of nascent human life while supporting the therapeutic possibilities of stem cell research. Regardless of whether developing embryos are deemed persons, respect for human life in its earliest stages is compatible with research on stem cells obtained from human embryos so long as the cells are retrieved from embryos that have been allowed, respectfully, to die.