Without a human mother, an embryo cannot fulfill its human potential. We
haven't figured out how to grow embryos in test tubes into fetuses and then
live humans, and we are not likely to. Without implantation and attachment
to a living uterus, no embryo can be considered more than potentially human.
        Another issue that must be considered is the ethical choice of
whether discard and destruction of such an embryo is a morally superior
action that subjecting it to research. The embryos are there, either way, as
a result of the fertility industry. What to do with the leftovers, as it
were, is the conundrum.
Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
Department of English
University of Houston-Downtown
One Main Street
Houston, TX 77002-0001
713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
"Question Reality"

> ----------
> From:         sylvia c.[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:         Monday, December 03, 2001 11:02 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: new interpretive perspectives?
> 
> I guess I have to call myself a lurker.  However I have just enough time
> to say that this sounds interesting & to add a few hopefully not too
> unthought-out comments to help stir the pot :)
>  
> Steven Bissell wrote:
> 
> > 1. Is the fertilized egg an embryo? Is it a moral agent? Do we have
> moral
> > obligations to fertilized eggs?
> >
> > 2. Is the blastocyst a moral agent? Do we have moral obligations to
> > blastocysts?
> >
> > I think this is mostly tangential to environmental ethics, but it sort
> of
> > goes to the question about whether or not we have moral obligations to
> > 'life' in the broad sense or in the narrow sense.
>  
> It's tangential only insofar as we are, "in fact", separate from our
> environment: rather a major issue, IMHO.  The construction of ethics in
> terms of agents, duties & obligations is interesting to me since it
> betrays an (IMO) unavoidable anthropocentric bias (much commented on
> already).  I'm curious - how to extend the "boundary" of the human body/
> consciousness & therefore its rights and obligations into the "world"?...
> Does that even make sense?!
>  
> John Foster wrote:
> An embryo is not a moral agent even though the embryo is sentient (well at
> 2
> months it is conscious). 
>  
> I was under the impression that this is precisely the issue that has not
> yet been resolved, and hence all the fuss, if I may understate it :)  But
> maybe I missed the latest conclusive research.  At what point is the
> embryo "conscious"; and more importantly, how do we define consciousness
> in the first place?  It seems to me that consciousness is the first
> assumption, upon which all other notions build on: agency, deliberation,
> sensibility, etc...   I think therefore that the debate starts with
> consciousness & its "definitions"; and the lack of any strong idea, let
> alone consensus of what constitutes consciousness, it seems to me, leads
> to a number of powerful conflicts, such as those surrounding the abortion
> debate, or whether animals have the same rights as humans, or whether we
> permitted within our ethics to clone human beings.  I must be a die-hard
> anthropocentrist reductionist (ie, the worst kind of person), but I keep
> thinking that these kinds of debates often "reduce" (or vastly expand?!)
> to questions on "what it means to be human/ what is the experience of
> being human"...  Anyway, just to point out that while it would be great if
> "consiousness" were as cut & dried as JF seems to think, unfortunately I
> don't believe that it is.
>  
> Agents have to be conscious of the difference
> between right and wrong in order to be ascribed moral 'agency'. Agency
> implies 'deliberation', 'consciousness', 'sensibility' or any similar
> other
> acts.
>
> Of course many conscientious persons have obligations to fertilized eggs.
> One of these obligations
> is the protection of pregnant mothers from work place hazards such as
> radiation from computer monitors, XRAYS, and certain drugs. Even though
> there are few legal obligations to protect embryos, many moral agents
> (adults) feel obligated to protect the fertilized human egg in advance
> from
> possible exposure to environmental harm.
>  
> This is on the assumption that fertilized eggs, indeed, eggs themselves,
> have the potential to be future humans... Another angle on the debate
> concerning what constitutes human life - the inevitable confusion about
> which I think Paul Kirby touched on in an earlier post wrt sustainability
> and future humans.
> 
> Moral agency can only be ascribed to those organisms capable of
> 'consciousness' and deliberation. Wanting to have a conscience (dread) for
> instance is a formal indication that human beings, having a primordial
> sensibility about 'dread' for instance, are immediately apprehensive of
> their 'ownmost possibility'.
>  
> I don't understand what you're getting at here.  Dread, apprehension -->
> ability to anticipate the future --> consciousness (displayed in many
> animals)?  Primordial (ie instinctual) sensibility; what is the difference
> between instinct and consciousness, if any?  Care to elaborate?
> 
> It really does not matter whether the object of moral concern is sentient,
> or insentient, since any justification for being an object of concern
> (longing for the fulfillment of others) is entirely dependent on a
> conscience, or a witness. For instance if there is an ancient artefact
> that
> was worthy of concern, there would have to be a 'conscience', and an
> anthropologist who would find value in protecting it by placing it into a
> museum.
>  
> I think it matters a whole lot that the object of moral concern is
> sentient - in fact this tends to be, as mentioned, the crux on which the
> debate turns: all the more unfortunately for environmental ethics, for
> example.  Also, the urge to _protect_ a "moral object" (?) is an
> interesting issue in ethics: why not just leave it alone and revere it for
> the values it embodies instead; or let it biodegrade/ die? 
> 
> Insentient objects like unique rocks could be 'moral objects' and the only
> test regarding their worthiness is a conscience, or witness. 
>  
> An individual witness?  
>  
> Incidentally
> the attribute of life is only one 'grounds' for wanting to have a
> conscience, because many persons also believe that even ideas, and the
> thoughts of great thinkers are moral objects worthy of being protected in
> law, for instance.
> 
> To sum up then the ethical form of comportment toward objects considered
> as
> morally worthy is dependent on 'wanting to have a conscience' and only
> 'sentient' organisms can have (or want) to have a conscience.
> 
> More's the pity?
>  
> Cheers, sylvia
>