The Permissibility of Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Ethical Evaluations and Suggestions (Brian...

Brian Bridson (5022405) The Permissibility of Embryonic Stem Cell May 5, 2009Research: Ethical Evaluations and Suggestions

Even before the 1970’s, abortion has been an ethically contentious issue in Canada and

around the world. Pro-choicers have argued that it is the right of every mother to maintain

control over her own body. Others held that fetuses are not persons, thus have no rights, and that

killing them is thus not equivalent to murder. Pro-lifers argue, for some religious as well as some

secular reasons, that killing the fetus is unethical, either because the fetus has a soul, because it is

a person, or because it is a person in potentia.

To the dismay of some, and the delight of others, biological and medical and scientific

advances made it possible to take cells from the inner cell mass (ICM) of blastocysts – 5-6 day

old embryos – which have the ability to become all the different cell types of the body, or

possibly even form a new conceptus. These harvested cells are being studied for a number of

reasons, including: cell replacement therapies; laboratory testing of new medicines on tissues

grown in the lab; and studying early human development. Arguments in favour of human

embryonic stem cell research (hESCR) and those who oppose it make use of many of the same

arguments employed in the abortion debate. There remains, even now, no ethical consensus

regarding whether or not the research is permissible. Given the promises of this field of inquiry

and research, it is important to develop at least a majority consensus regarding what is and is not

ethical, so that we can authoritatively stipulate what may or may not be done, in the same way

that most people find it ethically permissible to consume fruits, vegetables and even animals for

nourishment, or that torture is not ethically permissible. It is for these reasons that I have

undertaken this research.

In this paper I will argue that it is ethically permissible to use supernumerary embryos

from in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, as well as embryos created specifically for use in

hESCR. hESCR is ethically permissible because embryos are not entities possessing the abilities

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essential to personhood, and are thus not entitled to the moral protections reserved for persons. It

is not until a later stage of development that the central nervous system (CNS) develops and

becomes capable of consciousness, and it is not until much later, well after birth, that the child

becomes capable of more of the abilities essential to the type of thing a person is. If embryos

have no rights, they are entitled to no special protections, and thus their use in hESCR is indeed

ethically permissible.

In order to substantiate this position, and demonstrate its relevance, I will divide this

paper into three different chapters. In this first chapter I will provide an examination of the

science of human embryonic stem cell research. I will begin with a study of embryological

development from conception through the thirtieth week, so that it is made clearer what precisely

this entity called an embryo is, as well as what a fetus is. Next I will provide a discussion with

respect to what stem cells are exactly, the different methods of stem cell procurement, including

human adult stem cells (hASCs), and how these numerous types of stem cells differ from one

another. Finally, I will provide a brief discussion of why hESCs produced prior to 2001 are not

safe for use in humans.

In the second chapter of this paper I will enter into a discussion regarding why this

research is ethically permissible. I will commence with an historical examination of the subject,

which has its roots in the abortion debate. The next section of this paper will be concerned with

the concept of personhood and establishing an understanding of what is meant by ‘person’, such

that we remove inaccurate or irrelevant conceptualizations by evaluating both scientific and

philosophical arguments pertaining to the embryo and whether or not it is a person, and thus

whether or not it is a bearer of rights, such as the right not to be intentionally killed. I will then

provide an explanation and critique of a number of arguments opposing hESCR. I have classified

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these arguments as the ensoulment argument, the potentiality argument; the symbolist argument,

and the “humans, not persons” argument.

In the final chapter of this paper I will analyze what the current status of hESCR is in

Canada, both legislatively and in policy. In the second part of this chapter I will provide an

alternative to Canadian policy and law based on the ethical argument I develop in Chapter 2 of

this paper as well as making reference to legislative and policy precedents established in other

countries. In particular, I will discuss what role religion ought to play, and whether or not the

general public should be involved in setting policy.

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Chapter 1 The Science of hESC Research

Human embryonic stem cell research does involve the destruction of human embryos,

entities that share the standard genetic material characteristic to humans, and this is the reason

why there is such controversy surround the harvesting of human embryonic stem cells - the

research kills humans. Thus, before we can begin discussing the ethics of hESC research it is

necessary to first discuss what exactly is involved in the process of human embryo and fetal

development up to the thirtieth week, the methods of extracting and/or producing hESCs, and the

current and potential uses of hESCs in research and therapy. The ethical and legislative

discussion of hESC research can be found in Chapters 2 and 3.

Chapter 1.1 Embryogenesis and Fetal Development

Before the embryo comes to exist, all that exists is two gametes – the oocyte (ovum or

egg) and the sperm (singular, spermatozoa) – each containing only twenty-three chromosomes -

exactly half the number characteristic of human DNA; if a spermatozoa is able to penetrate the

membrane of the oocyte, fertilization occurs. During the process of fertilization the twenty-three

chromosomes from each gamete merge into one nucleus and the egg is now referred to as a

zygote. At this stage the zygote, the earliest stage of the embryo, is only a single cell, and while

it contains all the necessary genetic information to develop into a human person, nearly half of

all embryos fail to implant or result in miscarriage. Thus, assumptions that the embryo will

develop into a fetus, let alone an infant, are not a foregone conclusion.

I would like to begin by noting, very clearly, that there is no “moment” of conception.1 It

takes roughly 24 hours from the moment the sperm penetrates the outer membrane of the oocyte

(the zona pellucida), until the genetic material from both sperm and egg come together and are

appropriately aligned within a single genetic structure. As Asch et al write:

1 This is a point that shall be raised in greater detail in the Chapter 2.4


The goal of fertilization is the union of one, and only one, sperm nucleus with the female pronucleus within the activated oocyte. For this to occur successfully, several events must

transpire, including the incorporation of the entire spermatozoon into the oocyte, the completion of meiotic maturation with the extrusion of the second polar body, the metabolic activation of the previously quiescent oocyte, the decondensation of the sperm nucleus and the maternal chromosomes into the male and female pronuclei respectively, and the cytoplasm migrations of the pronuclei, which bring them into apposition. Defects in any of these events are lethal to the zygote and might prove to be causes of infertility.2

Following fertilization, the zygote commences mitotic cell division: one cell divides into two,

these two cells divide and become four cells, and etcetera; with each cell division, each cell

becomes smaller in size. After three days there have been a total of four cell divisions and the

number of cells in the zygote now number sixteen – the zygote is often referred to at this stage as

the morula. On the fourth day fluid passes into the morula and creates a cavity within it and

separates the cells into two distinct areas: the trophoblast (outer layer of cells) and about thirty-

six other cells called the inner cell mass (ICM) or the embryoblast.3 Once the embryo has

reached this developmental stage it is referred to as the blastocyst. Embryonic stem cells

(hESCs) refer to the cells of the ICM that are extracted and grown in laboratory cultures – but we

will discuss what precisely hESCs are in more detail in the next section.

At the stage of the blastocyst, the embryo is less than 0.1 mm across and must still

continue through nineteen other developmental stages prior to fetal development commencing.4

Also, at this stage the embryo has yet to attach itself to the uterine wall.

Once the embryo is ready to implant on the uterine wall, at around day 6, the outer layer

of the trophoblast differentiates into two different layers: the outer syncytiotrophoblast (ST) and

the inner cytotrophoblast (CT).5 The ST is responsible for producing lytic enzyme and secretes

other factors that allow it to penetrate the uterine wall. The process of uterine implantation

2 Asch et al., 1995, 1897.3 http://www.visembryo.com/baby/3.html4 Scott, 2006, 27.5 http://www.embryology.ch/anglais/gnidation/etape03.html

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http://www.embryology.ch/anglais/gnidation/etape03.html

http://www.visembryo.com/baby/3.html


continues until the end of the second week, at which time the embryo, if successful, will

completely penetrate the uterine wall.

At the beginning of the third week, or around 14 days, the cells of the ICM change,

organizing themselves into three different, specialized types. The cells of the ectodermal layer

become skin and nerve cells, including those of the central nervous system,6 the cells of the

mesodermal layer become blood, muscle and bone cells,7 and the cells of the endodermal layer

“…become cells inside the gut, pancreas, bladder, lungs, tonsils, pharynx, and parathyroid

glands.”8 These three different types of cells are also known as germ cells. It is at this point that

the primitive streak, a clustering of cells that mark the earliest developmental stage of the CNS,

forms.

The eighth to ninth week marks the end of the embryonic stage and the beginning of the

fetal stage, which is characterized less by the development of new body parts and more by the

growth of the fetus. By the eighth week, the embryo develops a mushroom-like head, spine,

brain, nose, limbs, the heart and other internal organs, and measures just less than 3mm in length.

At this point the CNS is also discernable in the growing body, though it is not functional in the

same way as that of a young child or an adult.

In his book regarding such topics as the requirements for and the onset of consciousness

in humans, David Benatar offers an argument regarding when we can say consciousness does not

exist and when it is possible that it might. In Better Never to Have Been, Benatar argues that

consciousness likely requires both electrical activity along the CNS, as well as distinct periods of

wakefulness and sleep. When we sleep and respond to external stimuli, our responses are not

consciously directed (or willed), but are instead the product of reflex or instinct. Therefore, if an

6 Scott, 2006, 30.7 Scott, 2006, 30.8 Scott, 2006, 30.

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entity were never to be awake, then it would remain confined to reflexive action only and never

have conscious states, or states of awareness and volitional control of ones actions. He then

turns to scientific methods to detect sleep-wake cycles, specifically employing an

electroencephalograph – a device used to measure electrical activity in the brain – or EEG. He

writes:

Although there are intermittent bursts of (sleep pattern) electroencephalographic activity in fetuses as young as twenty weeks gestation, it is only around thirty weeks that EEGs reveal sleep-wake cycles. In other words, it is only around thirty weeks that the first wakeful states are discernable. At this early stage, it must be emphasized, the EEG patterns for wakefulness and sleep are quite different from those of the adult.9

He does note, and rightly so, that this theory establishes only a baseline measurement for what

might be required for conscious states; it does not, however, serve as a positive indicator that

consciousness is in fact present. But because it is a baseline, we can, if Benatar is correct, rule

out the possibility of a human at less than thirty weeks gestation possessing consciousness.

Now that a cursory overview of the biological process of fertilization and gestation has

been provided, the next matter of discussion is with respect to what stem cells are, what

distinguishes hESCs from adult stem cells (hASCs), how they are cultivated, how they are being

used and what we have learned from studying them, and what possibilities lie ahead for this

research. In the next section I will often refer to certain of the information cited above; clearly

understanding “what a blastocyst is”, or, if you would prefer, the ontologically physical attributes

of the embryo, will provide a more robust and practical understanding of what hESC research

(hESCR) is and what it involves.

Chapter 1.2: Human Embryonic Stem Cells vs. Human Adult Stem Cells

Stem cells, be they embryonic or adult in nature, are cells that have the ability to not only

make copies of themselves through regular cell division, but can also create cells of a more

9 Benatar, 2006, 145.7


specialized nature; stem cells are responsible for producing all the cell types present in the body

– numbering more than 200.

All stem cells are unspecialized (undifferentiated) cells that are characteristically of the same family type (lineage). They retain the ability to divide throughout life and give rise to cells that can become highly specialized and take the place of cells that die or are lost.

Stem cells contribute to the body's ability to renew and repair its tissues. Unlike mature cells, which are permanently committed to their fate, stem cells can both renew themselves as well as create new cells of whatever tissue they belong to (and other tissues).10

Korobkin, however, adds another stipulation, directed at hESCs specifically. Of (embryonic)

stem cells, he writes that if they are to be useful “…they must…also be kept alive and able to

replicate indefinitely – without differentiating – outside the body.”11 And when these criteria are

met, the result is a useable stem cell line. In this research, it is important not only to be working

with the right type of cells, but it is just as important to have cells that are healthy enough to

divide and differentiate in the appropriate manner.

Biologically, hASCs and hESCs are quite distinct. hESCs are pluripotent in nature,

meaning they are in a nearly undifferentiated state, and can self-replicate indefinitely (given the

appropriate conditions), as well as producing all the cells of the body, including adult stem cells.

In fact, commencing around the 8-9 week period of gestational development and onwards, any

cell that can self-replicate and produce any cell that belongs to their germ cell type – ectodermal,

endodermal and endodermal – is considered an hASC.12 It was believed for some time that

embryonic stem cells could not be totipotent (omnipotent) because they are incapable of

becoming trophoblast cells. However, emerging research is demonstrating it may be possible to

effectively coax hESCs into a toti- or omnipotent state, giving them the ability to develop into a

10 MedicineNet.com.11 Korobkin, 2007, 11.12 Korobkin, 2007, 9.

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separate, genetically identical conceptus,13 which could open the door to countless laboratory

possibilities and, as we will soon discus, a plethora of ethical worries. And Glannon, in

Biomedical Ethics, notes that hESCs, unlike hASCs, are less likely to provoke an immune

response in the recipients, meaning they are probably safer than hASCs, with the exception of

those harvested from and used by the same person.14

hASCs are multi-potent in nature, meaning that they are somewhat specialized in nature,

but are still able to produce cells that are more specialized still, i.e. hematopoietic stem cells can

“…[form] all the types of blood cells in the body.”15 hASCs, while self-replicating, can produce

multipotential stem cells, which in turn produce progenitor cells, which produce a limited

number of cells. For example, a hematopoietic stem cell will produce a multipotential stem cell,

which produces a lymphoid progenitor cell that will produce natural killer (NK) cells, T

lymphocytes and B lymphocytes.16

The challenge with hASCs is that there is no litmus test for hASCs; they are detectable

only by placing cells in culture and looking for behaviour befitting hASCs. While an adult has

millions of hASCs in his or her body, in many different regions of the body, the fact that they are

so difficult to identify means that the process of culturing them is costly, requires abundant tissue

samples, and is inefficient. Some heralded these cells as allowing scientists to create patient-

specific stem cell lines for therapeutic use, but this will certainly not happen until we have

learned much more about this technology and have improved our methodologies. It is also the

case the hASCs, while abundant, are not present in all areas of the body, and thus, there are some

tissues and organs without stem cells to repair them, or from which to harvest stem cells to use in 13 This technique is possible because the coaxed hESCs can produce trophoblast cells, and could be used to create many hESC lines from a single source when desired, eliminating the limited tissues available in general, and certain disease-specific lines also.14 Glannon, 2005, 90.15 National Institutes of Health.16 Henriksen, 14.

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therapy. While there are certain limitations to using hASCs, treatments derived from them have

been successfully employed therapeutically – whereas hESCs have not – and they are without the

ethical quagmires of hESC research.

Chapter 1.3: Stem Cell Procurement Methodologies

This section will discuss how stem cells are procured, as well as some of the other

scientific issues with respect to each of the methodologies. The types of stem cells, whose

procurement methodologies we shall examine are: hESCs, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT),

altered nuclear transfer (ANT) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

Human Embryonic Stem Cells

hESCs are extracted from embryos at the blastocyst-stage of gestation, or 5-6 days post-

fertilization. Recall, at the blastocyst-stage of development, the embryo is comprised of the

trophoblast – the cells that will become placental tissue and provide nourishment for the

developing embryo – and the inner-cell mass (ICM). It is these cells that, if left intact, will

become all the cells of the body. The ICM, however, is what is removed to acquire all embryonic

stem cells, including those of the human variety. This process of ICM extraction destroys, and

thus killing, the embryo. Once removed the cells are placed in a culture of specially designed

feeder-cells to nourish and support their growth, with hopes that the cells will be able to replicate

indefinitely and be able to produce cells with greater differentiation. Figure 1.1 illustrates what a

blastocyst is, and Figure 1.2 illustrates the process by which hESCs are procured.

Depending on where one is in the world will determine what methods for hESC

procurement are legal and which are not. Some countries permit no hESC research, and, thus, no

hESC lines can be produced. Some countries only allow research only on existing lines, while

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other also permit creating hESC lines from supernumerary embryos17 from IVF clinics. Other

countries permit hESC lines to be procured from embryos created specifically for research

purposes. In any case, embryos are destroyed and ethical concerns abound.18

Another problem with hESCs is that once they are injected into a body they are prone to

teratoma formation. Teratomas are cancerous growths that develop because of errors arising

during the differentiating process, and the result is a collection of tissues from different germ

layers, such as teeth and hair. Scott, regarding teratomas, writes:

After all, teratomas are spectacular failures of development, an upset in the precise pathways needed to organize cells into tissues, tissues into organs, and the whole thing into a functioning creature. Development is a pattern of gene expression, so the chaos of a teratoma might be due to genes expressing themselves at inappropriate times.19

It is believed that with further research, made possible by increased funding, the process of

differentiation will become better understood and scientists will be able to more effectively

control the process of differentiation, minimizing the likelihood of teratoma formations.

Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT)

Somatic cell nuclear transfer, also known as therapeutic cloning, involves removing the

nucleus from virtually any cell of the body (a somatic cell), removing the nucleus from an oocyte

and replacing it with the removed somatic cell nucleus. Once this is complete, an electrical

charge is applied to the oocyte, tricking it into functioning as though it had been fertilized by a

sperm. If the process is successful, a “cloned” embryo is the result, one capable of developing

not only into a healthy blastocyst, but, under appropriate circumstances, into a healthy,

17 During the process of preparing embryos for IVF procedures, the clinics often produce more embryos than are needed, so that they may select only those they consider to be most fit, or in case the first treatment fails so the couple can try again if desired.18 President Barack Obama, however, has issued an executive order reversing the restrictions put in place by former President George W. Bush. 19 Scott, 2006, 42.

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developmentally-sound and self-sustaining individual.20 This allows researchers to create hESC

lines that are nearly genetically identical (histocompatible) to the person from which the somatic

cell was removed.21

The therapeutic potential for this technology is, without exaggeration, impressive. If the

histocompatibility issue can be resolved, the need for immunosuppressive drugs will be reduced

or eliminated, and their use will be far safer for recipients. This will allow hESCs to be created

for patients using their own genetic information, to create any cell required in the body, and,

thus, patient-specific stem cells.

The problems, ethical and otherwise, attributed to this method of harvesting hESCs are

the same as those characteristic of the traditional method of hESC procurement described above.

There is, however, an additional ethical worry associated with this approach: whereas with the

traditional method of hESC procurement supernumerary embryos from IVF clinics or aborted

fetuses are used, and so will be destroyed regardless, hESC lines produced using SCNT would

involve producing embryos with the specific intention of killing them.

Altered Nuclear Transfer (ANT)

Altered nuclear transfer uses the same technology employed in SCNT, with the exception

of a pre-emptive alteration to the genetic structure of the oocyte prior to inserting the somatic cell

nucleus, tricking the oocyte into behaving as though it is fertilized, becoming non-viable (or

incapable of becoming an embryo).22 William Hurlbut, a leading champion of ANT and a

member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, advocates ANT as a method of hESC

procurement that does not involve the destruction of the embryo, and thus, does not kill a human.

20 This process is not yet entirely realizable in humans. Thus far, we are only capable of having them remain healthy to the blastocyst stage.21 Even though the oocyte’s original nucleus is removed and replaced with the genetic material contained in the somatic cell nucleus, some residual occytic DNA remains in the cell in the form of mitochondrial DNA.22 Henriksen, 26.

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If, as many believe, life must be protected, even life in potentia, then we escape no quandaries in

employing this approach, as an embryo is still produced, the only difference is that with ANT it

is merely prohibited from maturing.

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs)

Induced pluripotent stem cells are generated by taking somatic cells and genetically

modifying them by inserting from 4 DNA transcription factors, delivered via chemical and/or

viral methods. By genetically modifying an adult somatic cell, researchers are able to produce

iPSCs which, as their name suggests, are pluripotent and are resemble ESCs in many ways. This

technology, once perfected and proven safe for humans, will allow for patient-specific hESC-like

lines to be developed that would be perfectly histocompatible. Thus, not only would iPSCs

escape some of the therapeutic challenges, i.e. immunorejection, of hESCs and SCNT, it would

also not be subject to the same ethical concerns as hESCs, SCNT or ANT.

One of the major clinical applications of this technology is to create disease-specific

pluripotent stem cell lines, which will allow researchers not only to study diseases in a controlled

setting, but will also be able to more effectively test drug treatments before moving to human

trials. One of the more popular disease-specific studies using iPSCs has been conducted by

Kevin Eggan’s group at Harvard with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s

disease. In an article describing their findings, Dimos et al report:

Here, we show that iPS cells can be produced using skin fibroblasts collected from an 82-year-old patient diagnosed with a familial form of ALS. These patient-specific iPS cells possess a gene expression signature similar to that of human ES cells and can be differentiated into cell types representative of each of the three embryonic germ layers. We have used these iPS cells to produce patient-specific motor neurons and glia, the cell types implicated in ALS pathology.23

23 Dimos, et al, 2008, 1218.13


Not only were they able to study this disease in the laboratory, but they were able to develop

functional patient-specific motor neurons and glia; the first step in developing autologous cell

replacement therapies. George Daley’s team, also based at Harvard, have reported “…the

production of human iPSC lines for ten diseases, ranging from simple Mendelian traits, like

adenosine deaminase deficiency…to complex conditions like Parkinson’s disease and Type 1

diabetes.”24

An issue with these pluripotent stem cells is that, until recently, researchers were relying

on using viral phages, which could cause a number of issues within one’s body if these iPSC-

based therapies were used. Before these cell lines are considered acceptable for use in humans, in

clinical trials or otherwise, researchers must be able to derive them without the use of the phages.

Chapter 1.4: Conclusion

Now that embryological development, as well as the methods of obtaining hESCs and

other similar types of stem cells has been explained and both their advantages and problematic

aspects described, we can now move forward to an ethical discussion of embryonic stem cell

research.

24 Colman, 2008, 236.14


Chapter 2 An Ethical Evaluation of Proposed Ethical Position Regarding Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

The second chapter of this paper will discuss not only the major ethical positions with

respect to hESCR, but it is also here where I shall elucidate what I consider to be an appropriate

ethical position with respect to hESCR, which will focus largely on the role that epistemology

ought to play in developing ethical positions in general and especially when we are concerned

with issues with the potential of hESCs. Before we can discuss the ethics of hESCR, we must

first draw our attention to the abortion debate, as many of the ethical concerns and defences aired

here carry over into the hESC debate.

Chapter 2.1 The Abortion Debate

In order to more completely grasp just what is involved in the hESC debate, it is

necessary to first provide an analysis of the abortion debate, as many of the arguments in favour

of and against hESC research were first developed and articulated within the abortion debate.

The contentious issue in this debate, the one that divides many pro-choice and pro-life advocates,

is the question of whether or not the fetus is a human person.25 Few argue that the fetus is not

human – because it is – but argue instead whether or not the fetus is also a person. This notion of

whether or not the fetus is a person, in addition to being human, will continue to be the deciding

issue in the hESC debate.

Those that argue the fetus is a human person generally hold that the embryo is a person

from the moment of conception, either by virtue of being a member of the human species or

because of notions like ensoulment.26 From this perspective it is wrong to “destroy” the life of

the fetus, just as it would be wrong to “destroy” the life of a 1, 10, 20 or 50 year old. For others

25 To others, it matters only that it is human, and so long as it is, then no amount of harm is permissible.26 For more information about these topics, please see the detailed discussions in Chapter 2.2.

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the embryo is not a person from the moment of conception but from the moment it is implanted

in the uterus, or 14 days after conception, once the primitive streak27 begins to develop.

Others argue that the embryo is never a person, but that it does become a person once the

embryo has developed into a fetus and is capable of sustaining its own life once outside of the

uterus (called viability). According to this position, while it may be permissible to abort the fetus

prior to having the ability to self-sustain it is impermissible to abort once it is capable of doing

so.

Yet another argument with respect to abortion and the standing of the embryo and/or

fetus is that even up to the point of infancy, that is, once it has been born and can survive on its

own, it still lacks the faculties essential to personhood and that killing or terminating it cannot be

considered equivalent to murder precisely because it lacks these faculties.

Within a Canadian context abortion has been legal since 1969 for therapeutic reasons.28

In 1988, due in no small part to the controversial work and influence of Henry Morgentaler, and

because prohibiting abortion violated a woman’s right to life, liberty and security of person as

guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, abortion was decriminalized within Canada.29

In 1991, in the Supreme Court case of R. v. Sullivan, the Court decided that a fetus is not a

person until such time that it is completely outside the body of the mother.30 However, to this

day, there is no law in Canada allowing abortion31; it has only been ruled unconstitutional to

prohibit a woman from having one at any stage of her pregnancy. Also, women in Canada do not

have equal access to abortion facilities, and in PEI women must travel to another province in

27 The primitive streak is the beginning of the central nervous system. After 14 days twinning is no longer possible and so the embryo can no longer develop into more than one person.28 Therapeutic abortions are those in which the pregnancy is terminated because of fetal abnormalities or due to the potential risk of death posed to the mother if the pregnancy were carried to term,29 However, to this day women do not have the right to have an abortion, even though denying an abortion to a woman violates her right to life, liberty and security of person.30 Ben-Ami, 2008, 4.31 Coyne, 2008.

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order to have an abortion; New Brunswick has stopped offering abortions in hospitals, leaving

only private clinics not covered under provincial health care plans.

Some abortion opponents argue that this legal vacuum surrounding abortion is unjust, as

a large percentage of Canadians do not support abortion, and as such, public monies should not

be used to support this practice. While it is true that no majority exists in favour of abortion, at

least abortion at all developmental stages and for any reason, an Angus-Reid poll shows 49% of

Canadians would support such a law.32 Interestingly, data from the poll demonstrates that as a

person’s income and level of education increase, so too does support for abortion at any stage.33

Within Canada abortion is legally permissible because prohibiting abortion would violate

the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which serves to guarantee that women have the

right to life, liberty and security of person. The Supreme Court has ruled that a fetus is not

legally considered to be a human person until such time that it has exited the body of the mother,

permitting abortions at any stage of pregnancy. It has also been evidenced that there are

numerous arguments in favour of, and in opposition to, abortion. There is a wealth of

information available regarding these issues, as abortion has been subject to public discussion for

over 100 years, and this history has contributed to the context for the debate regarding the

permissibility or impermissibility of hESC research. The next section of this chapter will focus

on the science involved in hESC research.

Chapter 2.2 Personhood

Before I commence an evaluation and critique of positions opposing hESCR, I would like

to explore the concept of personhood, as it is the abilities of personhood, I will argue, that give at

least some humans the legal protections of life and to be free from torture. Therefore,

32 Angus-Reid, 2008, 4.33 Angus-Reid, 2008, 6.

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understanding whether or not embryos are to be considered persons will provide a more

legitimate understanding of the subject of hESCR, and, thus enable us to come to a more

ethically sound position regarding hESCR; specifically whether or not this research is ethically

permissible or not and what restrictions, if any, should be placed upon it.

What is a person? Are all humans persons, or do only some satisfy the requirements of

personhood? If there are persons and non-persons, what are the abilities possessed by persons

that non-persons are without? Whatever these abilities are, they must be significant enough to

warrant the protections persons are afforded.

In 1641 Descartes, when discussing personhood in First Meditation on Philosophy,

claims that it is comprised of thinking, “…thought exists; it alone cannot be separated from me. I

am; I exist - this is certain. …I am a true thing and am truly existing; but what kind of thing? I

have said it already: a thinking thing.”34 Thus, from a Cartesian perspective, thinking is a

defining characteristic of personhood. It could be argued from Descartes’ inquiry, however, that

it is not just thought that he has in mind, but perhaps abstract thought instead; Descartes and any

other person would have been unable to develop any serious inquiry at all without being capable

of abstract thought or self-awareness.

Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, gives a detailed description of

what a person, in his estimation, is. According to Locke, a person is:

…a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it: it being impossible for any one to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive. … For, since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can

34 Descartes, 1641, II. 27.18


be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person…35

Also on the subject of personal identity he writes:

For as far as any intelligent Being can repeat the Idea of any past Action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present Action; so far it is the same personal self. For it is by the consciousness it has of its present Thoughts and Actions, that it is self to it self now, and so will be the same self as far as the same consciousness can extend to Actions past or to come.36

From these accounts, it is clear that Locke considers a person to be an entity such that it is

capable of using reason, being self-aware, of conceptualizing time and being able to

conceptualize and recognize their identity through time. As with Descartes, Locke also considers

reason and self-awareness to be some of the defining abilities of personhood, but Locke also

thinks that a person will be capable of even higher-order, abstract thought like temporal

recognition.

Joseph Fletcher, in Four Indicators of Personhood, argues that positive indicators of

personhood in humans includes: minimal intelligence; self-awareness; self-control; a sense of

time; a sense of futurity; a sense of past; the capability to relate to others; concern for others;

communication; control of existence; curiosity; change and changeability; balance of rationality

and feeling; idiosyncrasy; and neo-cortical function.37 This is an extensive list of indicators of

personhood in humans, and while I personally find nothing too problematic with most of them, I

would like to address a few specifically, as I believe they are not necessary for personhood. The

first is “concern for others”: one does not need to have any concern for anyone in order to be

considered a person; granted this would create the perception of being a pleasant person, but it

would not make you more or less of a person. The second of Fletcher’s indicators I would like to

35 Locke, Chapter XXVII.9.36 Locke, Essay II xxvii 1037 Fletcher, 1998, 378.

19


challenge is that of “control of existence”: it can be argued that no person is capable of

controlling their existence; existence is larger than any one of its individual components, and for

someone to think that they can control even their own existence is to suffer from severe

narcissism. We must take heed to not assert more about personhood than we can claim to

observe and test for, as the notion will fail to possess any meaning at all if it reflects abilities that

do not in fact exist.

Kuhse and Singer, in Unsanctifying Human Life, write that “…a human being [person] is

a being possessing, at least at a minimal level, the capacities distinctive of our species which

include consciousness, the ability to be aware of one’s surroundings, to be able to relate to

others, perhaps even rationality and self-consciousness.38

Others might argue that to claim an individual is a person is to assert that they possess not

only moral protections, but moral responsibilities as well. While this may be true for persons of

the human species, it is perhaps a speciesist evaluation of personhood, as I will explore later in

this chapter. The concept that persons possess both moral rights and reciprocal moral

responsibilities appears to be challenged even more when one considers that these rights and

responsibilities are social creations; rules created by humans to control or at least influence the

way human persons and organizations interact with one another, i.e., to provide persons with

certain safeguards because of financial and bureaucratic forces. Because these are human

creations, meant to govern how humans interact with one another, we should not consider that

other persons, if there are any, must uphold these rights and responsibilities; persons of different

species would have their own social codes of conduct, based on their own social structures.

In The Moral Status of Stem Cells, Kuhse and Singer propose a solution to determining

what the abilities associated with personhood are. They write:

38 Kuhse and Singer, 2002, 184.20


What kind of beings have intrinsic value and rights? First we must decide what type of being has intrinsic value and rights, and only then can we say what characteristics define its nature and what are accidental to it. We must not here say, ‘We already know that all and only human beings have intrinsic value and rights, so the answer is that you must be a human being.’ If we give such answers, then ‘the nature of entities’ that gives them basic values and intrinsic rights just is their consciousness or self-awareness or exercisable or previously exercisable capacity to reason.39

Their proposed method for determining what these are, is to consider an individual already

regarded as a person, like an adult human, and from studying this individual, determine which

abilities possessed by the human that are necessary for personhood and which are accidental or

non-essential. In order to determine which abilities are necessary and which others are only

accidental, I will consider those abilities discussed thus far. Following this, we will arrive at a

working understanding of what personhood is, and thus have a better understanding of what

types of entities have rights and which do not, as only persons qualify for these protections.

Thus, if embryos are not persons (or lack the morally relevant abilities necessary for

personhood), they possess no rights, and can thus be used in hESCR without any ethical qualms.

Afterwards I will consider a number of arguments that challenge this position, in order to better

determine if my position is as sound as I believe it to be.

Rationality

Descartes offers the first concept of personhood that I have considered in this paper, and

he determined that a person is a thinking thing. I also already argued that if we are to take his

writing as an example of the type of thought he has in mind, then it is not only primitive or first-

order thought, i.e., non-self-reflective thought, but abstract thought; the ability to consider not

only oneself but also one's relations to other individuals and the rest of existence. But does this

really distinguish persons from non-persons sufficiently enough to warrant the protections

afforded by personhood?

39 Kuhse and Singer, 2002, 278.21


Descartes really does seem to be discussing an individual with a presently exercisable

ability to think and understand, to varying degrees for different persons (depending on the

strength of their abilities); perhaps akin to Heidegger's concept of Dasein: a being whose

existence is a matter of concern for itself. Thus what Descartes has in mind really is that thought

is rational in nature; and for the purposes of this paper, being rational, or having a rational

nature, consists of being capable of using reasoned thought. Not only is rationality implied as an

ability in Descartes' concept of personhood, but also in the concepts of personhood articulated in

Locke's definitions, in Fletcher's list of positive indicators, and mentioned specifically by Kuhse

and Singer. But what is it that makes rationality so significant to our ethical considerations?

First, rationality, as an ability possessed by persons, allows them to not only be inquisitive and

try to understand the world around them, but to actually be much more successful in doing so;

reason has allowed humans, for instance, to progress from beliefs such as alchemy, that the earth

is the center of the universe, and that it is flat, to believing in modern science and chemistry, to

believing it may very well be impossible to determine where the center of the universe is, and to

believing that the earth is indeed a round ball being pulled through space, courtesy of the sun's

gravity that pulls us along our orbit. Reason also allows for persons to interact with their

environments in new ways, such as using tools to access food that competitors cannot.

Thus, an entity that possesses rationality has moral protections that must be enforced,

according to law. What we are considering is an entity that is capable of transcending mere

sentience, and being able to develop complex notions such as the identity of oneself and others,

of being able to creatively interact with one's environment, and of being capable of learning from

one's interactions with one's environment such that they can adapt and survive better than those

who cannot. Persons are also capable of forming abstract notions such as time, location, and are,

22


as such, significantly distinct from other entities in an ontological sense, have interests that other

entities do not, and thus are entitled to special protections. What is more, because rationality is

an ability not shared by an excessive number of entities, it serves as being a stringent enough

ability to search for when determining when an entity ought and ought not to be considered a

person.

Language

Language consists of the use of words and/or symbols, within a certain system of rules

dictating that use, i.e. grammar and syntax, to convey ideas and share new information with other

language users of the same genus, i.e., English, German, ASL, etc. Alarms may sound at the

suggestion that language be used as a criterion of personhood, as this sounds as though it is

perhaps an accidental ability and not one that is essential to personhood, and thus perhaps a

speciesist approach to determining when one is or is not a person. Some might argue that it is

speciesist because only humans are capable of using language, and thus immediately discludes

all other species as a result. But this is just the position described by Francione, "[there are still

some who] believe...an animal who is unable to form beliefs about the truth and falsity of

sentences is therefore unable to have desires or interests (other than in the sense that an engine

needs oil)",40 and thus believe that non-human animals must be able to function within human

conceptual systems, including language and logic.

This, however, may be the wrong approach to employ with respect to language. It is true

that most humans are capable of effectively employing language, while no other creatures can be

said to do the same; many organisms are unable to use language but remain capable of using

locomotive (i.e., dancing) or oral (i.e., warning calls) communication to effectively interact with

other members of their species, in at least a situational nature, i.e., for the purposes of finding

40 Francione, 2000, 10523


food or evading prey. Despite the tendency for non-human animals to have communicative

abilities only, some species can do more than merely communicate.

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Karen E. Brakke, in Animal Language, refer to their studies

of great ape language training with a wild caught adult female bonobo named Matata. Matata had

a great difficulty in a number of areas, including symbol discrimination, match-to-sample and

sorting, "...suggesting that her lexigram usage could not accurately be characterized as 'symbolic'

or 'referential,' at least at the procedural level typified by [certain chimpanzee subjects]."41

Interestingly, however, they goon to write:

By contrast, all of Matata's offspring [Kanzi, Mulika, and Panbanisha] acquired large symbolic vocabularies. The most important finding with these additional ape subjects was that it was not necessary to train language. Simply by observing and listening to the caretakers' input, as a child observes and listens to those around it, they began to use symbols appropriately.42

Savage-Rumbaugh and Brakke then discuss Kanzi, one of Matata's offspring and his ability to

use language. A common objection to discussing language in non-humans is that grammar or

syntax is necessary to take written or oral or signed symbols and create new meanings with them.

Kanzi, however, using his rudimentary but impressive signing abilities,43 was able to take two

signs which he had never used in conjunction before, 'car' and 'trailer', to form the utterance

'Car-trailer'. They write:

Had Kanzi said 'car' alone, this single utterance would have been interpreted as a comment about being in the car and would have simply been acknowledged. Had he said 'trailer' alone, the caretaker would have simply gotten out of the car and walked with Kanzi to the trailer, since it was a very short distance to drive. However, by saying 'car trailer' Kanzi produced a novel meaning and brought about a set of events that otherwise would not have been likely to occur, (i.e. taking the car to the trailer).44

On another occasion Kanzi grouped two other symbols, 'Matata' and 'grouproom' to make

41 Savage-Rumbaugh and Brakke, 1996, 277.42 Savage-Rumbaugh and Brakke, 1996, 277.43 A table in which some of these are displayed can be found in Annex C at the end of this paper.44 Savage-Rumbaugh and Brakke, 1996, 280

24


'Matata grouproom', indicating a desire to go and meet Matata, his mother, in the group room.

In exploring why this two-word syntax qualifies as language, Savage-Rumbaugh and

Brakke focus on Kanzi's ability to create new meanings using his syntax and symbols, instead of

relying on pointing in order to convey intentionality. They write:

While it is not possible to know at any given moment why Kanzi said 'Car trailer,' 'Matata grouproom,' or any other of thousands of similar utterances, it is reasonable to conclude these utterances were provoked by an interaction between Kanzi's memory system and information he was processing at the current time. Moreover, they reflected an attempt to communicate a specific message about his internal state to another party, rather than a simple naming of something pointed out by the experimenter. As such, these two-word messages were communicative and expressed things that the experimenter would not otherwise have known.45

They thus believe that Kanzi, by combining symbols in new, creative ways to convey new

information to another party satisfies the requirements of language.

While this does not indicate how many non-human entities are capable of learning to use

language, it does demonstrate that some can, given that they, like humans, learn to do so before a

certain stage of development. Thus, while possessing the ability to use language may qualify one

as being a person, not being a language user can be the result of simply never learning, or not

learning at an early enough age, not necessarily indicative of a natural inability. For these

reasons, I am not including the ability to use language as a criterion for personhood, because of

our inability to accurately identify when this ability does and does not exist, and so it would not

be ethical to consider language-using as an ability in our considerations of an entity’s

personhood.

Theory of Mind

These are conceptually charged concepts and time will be taken to address them

adequately. To be conscious means to be aware of oneself. McLaughlin states that: "Conscious

45 Savage-Rumbaugh and Brakke, 1996, 280-8125


states such as pain states, visual experiences, and so on, are such that it is 'like' something to be

in them."46 To be conscious, then, would require one to be not only self-aware, but also aware of

their own surroundings, yet as much of an evolutionary breakthrough as self-awareness is, there

seems to be very little distinguishing humans, who we consider to be persons (to what degree

will be determined shortly) and many other animals.

But no, we seem to have something else in mind when we think of persons; we tend to

think of persons as, minimally, also being capable of inferring the mental states of others, and

being able to make sense of one's physical and social surroundings, requiring not only the ability

to infer the mental states of others, but of being cognitively capable of knowing the general

personalities and propensities of many other individuals. De Waal notes that during studies in the

1970's by Gordon Gallup on chimpanzees, orangutans and children more than 18 months of age,

the subjects were able to pass mirror-self-recognition tests.47 He also noted, however, that these

subjects were also capable of: attribution of intent to others; intentional deception; reconciliation;

and, sympathy.48 These abilities all display self-recognition and a theory of mind in the other

individual, i.e., thinking of them as happy; making them think one thing while really doing

something else; trying to collaborate with another to secure a peace; or trying to understand the

pain or anguish of another person. Each of these activities requires the individual to refer to the

mental states of others while also making reference to their own mental states in the process. The

ability to form second- and third-order thoughts about oneself and others is clearly the exact type

of ability we consider so intrinsic to personhood - the ability to have interests and have a theory

46 McLaughlin, 1999.47 “An individual unknowingly received a dot of paint in a specific place, such as above the eyebrow, invisible without a mirror. Guided by their reflection, chimpanzees and orangutans - as well as children more than 18 months of age - rubbed the painted spot with their hand and inspected the fingers that had touched it, recognizing that the coloring on the reflected image was their own face. (De Waal, 1996, 68)48 De Wall, 1996, 68.

26


of mind.

Consciousness, or, theory of mind, then, does seem to be useful for establishing a

benchmark for when an entity can be considered a person. But as with other concepts we have

considered thus far, theory of mind should be one of a number of abilities looked for when

evaluating when an entity ought to be considered a person; but, as already stipulated, on a case-

by-case basis and not on the basis of species.

Moral Protections, Moral Responsibilities

Some might argue that persons are not solely granted certain ethical considerations and

moral protections, but also a corollary set of ethical responsibilities, and that if an entity is

incapable of understanding what these are, then they cannot be said to be persons. But these

protections and responsibilities are a human construct, in the form of rights, which dictate how

human persons ought to treat other human persons, but are foreign to members of other species.

Thus, failure for a chimpanzee, for example, to comprehend and obey moral rules constructed by

humans, says nothing about the chimpanzee's status of personhood. Members of other species,

too, are capable of the kindness and empathy, as well as violence, any person is capable of; and

perhaps before we so quickly reject the personhood of members of other species for failing to

adhere to our socially constructed, moral rules, we should take stock of how frequently we

ourselves violate this very code. As such, the inability to follow humanly contrived, ethical

standards should not be considered an ability of personhood. In fact, in human and non-human

societies, members who do not follow social rules of behaviour and conduct are treated

differently than those that do, meaning that in any social order, deviance from the rules is never

disregarded (often met with ostracization). We cannot hold members of other species morally

culpable for violating our rules, but perhaps the ability to obey some set of socially contrived

27


rules for behaviour, no matter whether they are generally in or out of sync with our own, should

be considered one of the abilities to be looked for when trying to determine when one is or is not

a person.

What is a Person Then?

Given this discussion of what the abilities of personhood are, I would like to construct a

working understanding of what personhood is, and then turn to a brief analysis of this view's

implications. From the discussion above, I believe we can safely say, first and foremost, that

personhood, when stripped down to its most essential characteristics, makes reference to neither

race, nor sex, nor species, so members of other species who satisfy the criteria of personhood

ought to be regarded as belonging to this class of entities, by virtue of definition alone. It also

means, by the same token, that just because certain members of a particular species are

considered to be persons that all members of that species are as well; personhood is determined

on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the criteria to be discussed below.

Second, personhood can be said, from the discussion above, to relate to complex

cognitive abilities, traditionally associated with a functional neo-cortex.49 The abilities include

exercisable or previously exercisable: rationality, theory of mind, and the ability to comprehend

and adhere to social rules particular to that entity, i.e., a chimpanzee would not be expected to

adhere to human social rules.

Implications of this View

The major implication of this view is that, within the class of beings known as homo

sapiens, some members are not to be considered persons. One sub-class of humans, and those 49 Medicinenet.com describes the neo-cortex as “The newer portion of the cerebral cortex that serves as the center of higher mental functions for humans. The neocortex contains some 100 billion cells, each with 1,000 to 10,000 synapses (connections), and has roughly 100 million meters of wiring, all packed into a structure the size and thickness of a formal dinner napkin. The cells in the neocortex are arranged in six layers, within which different regions permit vision, hearing, touch, the sense of balance, movement, emotional responses and every other feat of cognition.” (Medicinenet.com.)

28


that are the focus of this paper, is embryos. Embryos altogether lack the qualities essential to

personhood; they have absolutely no cognitive abilities whatsoever. As such, given that human

rights apply to human persons, and that embryos do not qualify, research that requires their

destruction is not only ethically licit, but may even be regarded as ethically obligatory, given the

great medical promises they hold and the lack of ethical problems associated with this research.

Even though they were trying to establish the opposite point, George and Tollefsen help to

illustrate the absurdity involved in referring to the embryo as a person. They write:

For embryos clearly cannot yet think, choose, and speak; nor are they (yet) self-conscious or even sentient. Were this to mean that embryos were not the same kind of beings as the readers and authors of this book, that they were not persons, then it would be difficult to see why they should be accorded the same moral respect that we, authors and readers, believe we are entitled to.50

Some might criticize this view because a natural implication of it is that not only are embryos not

to be considered person, but neither should some adult humans; while this is not the focus of this

paper, I will say something of it here. If there are adult humans who are brain dead, such that

they can no longer possess neo-cortical function, then I think it is fair to say that these

individuals should not be considered persons. If, however, these individuals retain the capacity

for neo-cortical function, then I believe here we have reason to still consider the individual a

person; it also means that the very young, fetuses and children under about 18 months of age

should also not be considered persons.

At this point I would now like to discuss arguments that challenge this position; some of

these arguments will have been touched upon during my analysis of personhood and in Chapter

1, but a discussion of them will be provided and discussed directly below, even if only briefly, as

a major challenge to my own position must be met directly. I have labelled these arguments as:

the ensoulment argument; potentiality argument; the symbolist argument; “humans, not persons”.

50 George and Tollefsen, 2008, 60-6129


Ensoulment or Catholic Argument

The first thing one must do is to inquire as to what precisely is meant by ensoulment.

Ensoulment is characterized as a Christian argument, but it is especially championed by the

Catholic Church. For this reason, I will be focussing predominately on the concept of ensoulment

as articulated by the Roman Catholic Church (which will herein be referred to as 'the Catholic

position' or as 'the Church' as well).

In their paper Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Jafari et al write,

"According to the Christian position, ensoulment occurs when there is a physical body to

ensoul."51 And in Fission and Confusion, Hershenov and Koch-Hershenov write:

Many Catholic opponents of abortion and stem cell research oppose it on the grounds that the embryo is ensouled from fertilization onward. We are each identical with a being that was once a zygote and the soul which we share with that early embryo bestows upon us the value that makes the destruction of the embryo wrong.52

But one might want to legitimately want to be presented with what the Church itself says about

the moral status of the embryo. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in their

Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origins and on the Dignity of Procreation writes:

The freezing of embryos, even when carried out in order to preserve the life of an embryo - cryopreservation - constitutes an offence against the respect due to human beings by exposing them to grave risks of death or harm to their physical integrity, and depriving them, at least temporarily, of maternal shelter and gestation, thus placing them in a situation in which further offences and manipulation are possible.53

If there remains any question as to just how adamantly the Church believes that the embryo

deserves full ethical protections, Ted Peters removes any doubt:

The Roman Pontiff and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith attribute full human personhood and dignity and moral status to the embryo from the moment of fertilization on. In order to avoid any slight of ethical hand that might compromise this firm position,

51 Jafari et al, 2007, 83.52 Hershenov and Koch-Hershenov, 2006, 237.53 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origins and on the Dignity of Procreation.

30


the Vatican uses interchangeably terms such as zygote, pre-embryo, embryo, and foetus.54

The Catholic position is, thus, absolutely opposed to the tampering with any form of human life

that threatens the welfare of that human. And this is due to the fact that the human being, from

conception onward, is endowed with a soul that gives it the moral status of a person, as the soul

forms the nature of the human. But before we can make any progress with respect to the

(in)validity of the ensoulment argument, we must consider what the soul is.

In a paper for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Schroedel describes the

soul as if it were a ghostly substance, claiming it is an "...elusive, ill-defined, unseen

quantity…"55 And in the Encyclopedia of Catholicism, when describing the soul, they write:

The Catholic Church affirms that each human being has only one soul, that the human soul is spiritual...its higher-order activities are neither material nor intrinsically dependent upon matter, that it is created by God and simultaneously with the body; and that it is immaterial.56

The Congregation of the Faith also writes, "The inviolability of the human being's right to life

'from the moment of conception until death' is a sign and requirement of the very inviolability of

the person to whom the Creator has given the gift of life."57 They go on to write, "The human

being must be respected - as a person - from the very first instance of his existence."58 Thus, the

soul is an immaterial substance, is created by god simultaneously with the body, and because it is

created by god, it is considered sacred; just as it is an egregious sin to desecrate a consecrated

host or abandon the host during adoration, so it is an egregious sin to harm or destroy human life.

Thus, according to the ensoulment argument, hESCR, because it is destructive to the embryo, is

highly unethical and as such, should be prohibited. I would now like to challenge this argument,

54 Peters, 2003, 181.55 Schroedel, 1.56 Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, 1210-11.57 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origins and on the Dignity of Procreation.58 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origins and on the Dignity of Procreation.

31


the consequences of which will have ramifications insofar as the third chapter of this paper is

concerned.

I am disputing this position because there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to

validate the concepts of god or soul. And if it can be demonstrated that these are not valid

concepts, because we have no sound justification for them, then the view that human life, is

sacred at any stage can no longer be taken seriously. This argument then will lose all credibility

and will not be considered authoritative with respect to the moral status of the embryo.

There is no evidence to suggest that god exists; neither the god of the Jews, Christians

Muslims, nor those of Hinduism’s great polytheistic culture, or of the ancient regions of Greece

and Rome; the only evidence we have for the existence of any god are ancient books (one

supposedly written by an illiterate man) and stories and social conventions adapted from these

books. In fact, theology, which is the science of god, is based on scripture and Church tradition.

The Encyclopedia of Catholicism defines the science of god as "...any scientific, or methodical

attempt to understand and interpret divine revelation mediated through the data of Scripture and

tradition."59 Theology then, in its ever intensifying quest to better know god, is not necessarily

concerned with archaeological or any other scientific evidence pertaining to the existence of god;

the marvellous and unjustifiable claims made by the "great books", coupled with 2,000 years of

oral and written commentary, is sufficient for the Catholic worldview. And as A.J. Ayer

comments in The Principle of Verification, "...if it is so interpreted that no possible experience

could go to verify it, it does not have any factual meaning at all."60 And as Christopher Hitchens

writes in Slate, "...that which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without

evidence."61 Religion, then, is something that we should not allow to have any influence over

59 Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, 1250.60 Ayer, 1990, 128.61 Hitchens, 2003

32


anything in the public realm; religion's jurisdiction should remain exclusively within the private

affairs of individuals who choose to believe such things.

If the concept of god is not something we ought to consider as having any factual

meaning, and thus no relevance at all, then what implications does this have for the soul, that ill-

defined, unseen substance? As McMahan writes:

The idea that we are souls faces an embarrassing array of questions to which it is difficult to provide answers that are supported by reason and argument rather than mere conjecture. What is the nature of the soul? What reason is there to suppose that the soul, so conceived, exists? Do nonhuman animals have souls as well, and if not, how can one detect the presence of the soul in an embryo while being confident of its absence in a dog?62

We have just as little reason to accept that there is a soul as we do a god; especially if, as the epic

goes, god creates the soul of each human personally. It is made increasingly difficult to believe

in a thing, like a soul, whose definition makes it something impossible to falsify. There is also a

logical problem with this belief: if the soul is immaterial, then no person could have ever

examined one to be able to record its qualities or attributes, because this is, by definition,

impossible. And if we are instructed that this knowledge came to us by some sort of divine, and

infallible, revelation, then the same problems associated with establishing the existence of a deity

apply; there is no evidence that such a deity (or any deity for that matter) exists and thus there is

nothing to substantiate any claim of divine revelation. If we do not consider creationism to be

something credible enough to be taught in science classes, then we ought not let religion have

any jurisdiction in the realm of ethics in the public sphere.

In fact, if one allows views such as these to inform one's ethical considerations and

become part of one's moral practices, then this person can, at best, be considered easily

mainpulable and unwittingly operating within an inapplicable ethical framework, and at most,

willingly unethical. Ethics is used to determine certain principles which we use to determine the

62 McMahan, 2007, 183-8433


'goodness' and 'badness' of actions and decisions, both in general and in specific contexts. If

ethics are to be of use in this world then they must make sense and not be based on unfalsifiable

beliefs - beliefs for which there is no evidence - for they cannot be said to be functional, as they

are not based, in any direct fashion at least, in the experiences we have in the world; they are

mediated by belief in what is essentially another world. And to instruct people that they

themselves, their actions and their decisions are 'wrong' or 'bad' or even 'evil' - based on ethical

evaluations - for no other reason than that they have violated a tenant of your own esoteric belief

system, is to be considered most unethical. As Sam Harris argues, "The moral truth here is

obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a

child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics."63 But

when you use religious beliefs, like those of some Catholics, to block research that has the

potential to save or better the lives of so many millions of people, your unfounded beliefs are

contributing to the deaths of millions of people every year, and your actions, in my estimations,

are most heinously unethical.

Potentiality Argument

The proponents of the potentiality argument, unlike the ensoulment argument, include

both the religious (those affiliated with or representing organized religions) and some secular

persons, but it also shares a similarity with the ensoulment argument; that the human is

considered a person from conception onward. And it is considered a person from conception

onward by sheer virtue of the fact that the embryo has the potential to develop the capacity for

the abilities of personhood. John P. Lizza, in Potentiality and Human Embryos, describes

potentiality in the following manner:

An embryo is, by definition and by its nature, fully developed human person; its potential

63 Harris, 2008, 32134


for maturation is a characteristic it actually has, and from the start. The fact that embryos have been created outside their natural environment - which is to say, outside the woman's body - and are therefore limited in their ability to realize their natural capacities, affects neither the potential nor the moral status of the beings themselves. ...It means only that a caged bird - like an in vitro human embryo - has been deprived of its proper environment.64

And McManaman, in On the Nature of the Embryo, writes, "...the human embryo does

eventually come to see, hear, kick, suck its thumb, and cry. It functions like a human person,

because it has the potentialities of a human person, because it is a human person."65 Thus,

according to authors like McManaman, because the embryo is a human with the potential to

become a mature human being with the abilities of personhood, the embryo is a person.

This is explained further by Lee and George. In Human-Embryo Liberation, they write:

...human embryos have within themselves not only all [of] the organizational information needed but also the active disposition to use that information to develop themselves to the stage of a mature human being. If provided with a suitable environment and nutrition, and barring accident, disease, or intentional violence done to them, these nascent human beings will grow by an integrated, self-directed process, through the fetal infant, toddler, child and adolescent stages of human maturation, and into adulthood with their identity and distinctness intact.66

This description helps to further elucidate what exactly is entailed by the potentiality argument.

According to Lee and George, it relies both on the self-directed gestational development and

maturing process, and also on the premise that the embryo shares the same identity with the

person who might later develop from it.

Despite what proponents of this view may put forth as an argument, there are a number of

conceptual problems with it, such that this argument does not demonstrate any valid reason for

granting embryos the equivalent moral rights provided for human persons, and any person

seriously committed to it is likewise committed to an absurd use of language. The two main

elements I would like to discuss are, first, the concept of potentiality itself, and second, the

64 Lizza, 2007, 38065 McManaman, 2005.66 Lee and George, 2006.

35


concept of the embryo having a rational nature.

What do we really have in mind when we employ the concept of potentiality? When used

in the way described by the authors above, it means that every embryo has an equal potential for

personhood; but is this actually the case? Just like full-grown, adult-humans, every embryo is not

created physiologically equal, nor are any two embryos, even identical twins, subject to precisely

the same environmental conditions during or following their uterine development. As such, each

embryo faces its own unique challenges for survival, affecting the likelihood each embryo has of

developing the abilities of personhood, and thus not all embryos have an equal potential to

become a person. As Lizza writes:

I argue that whether an embryo has the potential to be a person is not determined by definition. Indeed, it is an empirical matter involving an assessment of the actual physical conditions that may restrict the embryo's possibilities. In this view, some human embryos may lack the potential to become a person that others may have. Assuming, for the sake of argument that the potential to become a human being gives the person a special moral status, it would follow that some human embryos lack this status.67

And certainly, if we argue that, as the science indicates, not all embryos have the same potential

for personhood, including some that will never become actual persons, then it seems to make

very little sense to refer to this potential as being in some way morally or ethically significant. To

advocate the opposite, that embryos deserve the moral protections of personhood by virtue of

their potential personhood, is to claim that all embryos are equally persons even though some

will never develop the abilities associated with personhood, which is a contradiction. And if we

posit that, according to this view, embryos are considered persons, when in actuality they are not,

then our language necessarily exchanges real-world referents for fictional-referents in their place.

This makes as little sense as it would to refer to caterpillars as butterflies, as they are considered

two distinct types of beings; made distinct because of the cellular reorganization and

67 Lizza, 2007, 38036


development required to get from the caterpillar stage to that of the butterfly, which is equally

the case between embryos and adult humans.

I would like to argue that those who are proponents of the potentiality argument, are

actually incapable of embracing it completely in practice; if by this argument we are to

understand that anything with the active (or actual) potential to become a mature human being

capable of personhood deserves full moral protections, because this would entail tremendous

financial and biological costs, as well as a world population that would like leave too great an

ecological footprint for the earth to support it. And this is the case because fully living this belief

would mean being committed to a nearly infinite process of creating new potential human

persons.

That anything with the active potential to become a human person, via a self-directed

process, should be considered a person by virtue of this potentiality, is of course a natural

implication of this view. As Sagan and Singer write:

If something can develop into a new human being, should we think of it as having the moral status of an embryo? If what is important is that an entity can become an adult human being, then should not that entity have the same moral status as an embryo that can develop into a mature human being?68

If this is the case, as I believe it follows logically from the potentiality argument, then the cells

from the early embryo, or even coaxed hESCs, should be extracted and used to create new

human embryos, for no other reason than that these cells have the active potential to become

human persons by their own self-direction. What is more, cells can be removed from each new

embryo, without threatening its integrity, and be used to create new embryos, and so on many

times.69 But no society, anywhere, makes any attempt to do any of this, no matter how much they

claim to value potential persons. Sagan and Singer carry on, "We do not even consider ourselves

68 Sagan and Singer, 2007, 26969 A process referred to as embryo splitting.

37


obliged to split the early embryo, which is an easy and reliable way of allowing its cells to

develop into human beings."70

The number of new human beings with the potential for personhood becomes even more

astounding when we consider that SCNT would allow us to create billions upon billions of these

types of humans by taking cells from our own bodies, creating new embryos, and splitting them

as many times as possible. But some defenders of the potentiality argument may argue that what

counts is an active potentiality for personhood, not a passive potentiality, as is the case with

gamete cells and cells that do not come from the early embryo. But could we not argue that

embryos created in vitro also lack an active potentiality for personhood, until such time as they

are implanted in a womb? If this is the case, then defenders of this view must either demonstrate

an active potentiality for personhood despite the embryo lacking all the environmental conditions

necessary for it to develop (if all goes well) into a human person, or they must concede and

admit that embryos created in vitro lack active potentiality for personhood and that their use is,

as such, permissible in hESCR. If they decide to argue that in vitro embryos possess an active

potentiality to develop into persons, then they appear to be in a conundrum. For if the very great

barrier lying between an in vitro embryo and a womb is treated so lightly such that the embryo is

considered to still possess active potentiality, then somatic cells and gametes ought to be treated

with the same respect: gametes simply require union (or, in the case of embryos, enucleation as

well) and somatic cells require their nuclei to be removed and used to enucleate denucleated

oocytes. But the end result is the same: a new embryo with the potential of becoming a human

person.

But embracing this position and carrying through to its natural conclusions is not a

70 Sagan and Singer, 2007, 27038


possibility for anyone; it would require vast economic, intellectual, and biological costs.71 The

population would skyrocket so quickly that, with current levels of consumption and waste, that

we would likely drive ourselves into extinction, and all in the name of valuing all potential life; a

logical extension of the potentiality argument. This is plainly a position with too many logical

challenges within it to be valid.

But again, some defenders may claim that the argument was never intended to be so

inclusive, and that it ought only apply to embryos. But as Sagan and Singer argue, as do all the

other authors we have looked at with respect to potentiality, that what is important in the

argument itself is the potential the embryo has. And if this is extended to unimplanted in vitro

embryos, then we must admit that this potential can be active or passive, and thus, to deny all

other cells but embryos really is to make a decision based on convenience and not ethical

considerations. And if this is the case, then defenders of this view are morally culpable, every

day, for the death of untold billions of potential persons.

The potentiality argument, then, is not valid and thus does not successfully challenge my

position that only actual persons are eligible for the protections afforded by human rights, i.e.,

the right to life, and that embryos do not satisfy the requirements of personhood. Thus, the

potentiality argument does not demonstrate that research requiring the destruction of embryos is

wrong. The next argument I would like to consider is the symbolist argument.

Symbolist Argument

This argument is articulated by, amongst others, Manien. She discusses how then

President of the United States, Bill Clinton, argued that hESCR ought to be eligible for federal

funding when using supernumerary embryos from IVF procedures. While agreeing with the

71 Would require many (or all) women to be used so that their wombs could be used as homes for embryonic and fetal gestation, until such time that artificial wombs are available and effective.

39


position, she writes, “…despite the willingness to move forward with embryonic stem cell

research, the advisory boards that support it also include a rather underdeveloped caveat: the

embryos that are to be destroyed for stem cell research must be treated with respect.”72 Thus,

according to this view, embryos are not granted the same moral status as human persons, but

they are granted a symbolic value for what they represent. Later in this same paper she succinctly

summarizes this position; she writes:

Respect entails, first and foremost, that sentient beings not be needlessly harmed or exposed to unnecessary pain…when a being is incapable of being harmed it seems that respect is fully encompassed by having the right type of attitude toward that being; respect becomes less about refraining from performing harmful actions and more about possessing the right type of attitude toward the being in question.73

This argument accords embryos respect by making their deaths useful and beneficial, instead

of a literal and figurative waste.

At first glance this argument may appear to resemble part of my own, whereby I

argued that, because of their potential numerous advances in medicine and biology, we ought

to conduct hESCR. However, despite these appearances, the two positions are not

synonymous. In my position I do not argue that embryos deserve any special sort of respect:

moral, symbolic, or otherwise. Frogs that are used as fishing bait possess many qualities

deserving of many more moral considerations, such as sentience, than do embryos, but this

does not stop enthusiasts from piercing a hook under their mouths and up through their

nostrils, even whilst the frog struggles hopelessly to remove it, and literally toss it to the fish.

If we are willing to treat sentient beings in this manner without any ethical repulsion, then

why should we afford any respect at all to an entity entirely without any of the characteristics

that would make it worthy of moral respect or considerations. That said, it should go without

72 Manien, 2007, 227.73 Manien, 2007, 233.

40


saying that researchers go to great lengths to ensure that the integrity of the embryo is

respected at all times. This is not because any single one of them, necessarily, believes

embryos deserve special respects, but because the integrity of the embryo must be

safeguarded at all times so that they remain useful in research.

Because embryos altogether lack the qualities that entitle beings to moral rights, they

cannot be said to have any value, in the moral sense, whatsoever; it is difficult to comprehend

how an embryo would ever be entitled to any sort of special respect at all. I would now like to

turn to a final argument challenging my own position; the argument I have characterized as

"humans, not persons".

Humans, not Persons

According to this view, human rights should be interpreted as applying to all humans, not

just human persons; if defenders of this position, like George and Tollefsen, are successful, then

all humans, including embryos, would be afforded the protections of human rights. They first

develop what is, at best, a patchy argument to demonstrate that embryos are persons. In Embryo:

A Defense of Human Life, the argue:

It belongs to our paradigmatic understanding both of what it means to be an organism of a particular species, and of what it means to be a person, that both organisms and persons are wholes, entities sufficiently unified that they can be considered to be one particular being. In short, organisms and persons are individuals.74

Thus, in their estimation, because the concepts "human" and "person" have become so

intertwined that it has become impossible to conceive of a human that is not also a person. Their

concern, then, if any early embryo is destroyed, is that an actual person has been killed. They

write, "...the evidence clearly indicates [that the embryo, from the zygote stage onward acts like

a whole organism, has differentiated parts, and has interactions between its various cells] that the

74 George and Tollefsen, 2008, 14741


human embryo, from the zygote stage forward, is a unitary organism,"75 and thus an individual -

a human person. Human embryos, just as much as human adults, are persons and are afforded all

the rights and protections afforded to mature humans.

With this understanding in hand, I would like to focus specifically on what George and

Tollefsen have to say about rights:

...all human beings are human persons, and are to be respected as such by promoting and preserving in them those human goods constitutive of their well-being, including the good of human life. We [argue] that because their exists a moral norm prohibiting the intentional taking of the life of an innocent human being, there was also a correlative rights claim, a right to not be intentionally killed. All humans beings, we [argue are] subjects of precisely this right.76

Thus, embryos are the subjects of rights, including the right not to be intentionally killed, which

precludes their use in research requiring their destruction. They continue:

Human beings have a moral right not to be intentionally killed to benefit others. This right obtains for human beings by virtue of what they are, namely, creatures with a rational nature. It is not possessed by some beings but not by others. It is possessed by all human beings and is possessed by them from the time they come into being. It is a human right.77

Thus, because humans possess a rational nature, whatever their stage of development or variety

of ailment or incapacity, all humans are persons, and ought to be afforded the protections of

human rights on these grounds.

However, George and Tollefsen's conceptualization of humans and personhood are

unfounded assumptions. That a necessitating link between "human" and "person" has become as

paradigmatic as it has, does not justify the belief that the two are conjoined in the ontological

manner articulated by the authors. If we believe, as I argue, that personhood is only present when

certain abilities are exhibited, such as rationality and theory of mind, then it is true that many

humans are also persons. However, as is the case with embryos, some humans possess only the

75 George and Tollefsen, 2008, 15776 George and Tollefsen, 2008, 189-9077 George and Tollefsen, 2008, 201

42


potential for personhood, while those with certain injuries and illnesses have lost the abilities

required for personhood on a temporary or permanent basis. It does not seem fitting to consider

embryos persons if, as discussed earlier, embryos do not possess any of the abilities of

personhood; embryos do not possess a rational nature any more than the sofa I am sitting in, and

having the potential for a rational nature is not equivalent to actually possessing a rational nature.

If George and Tollefsen want to continue to employ this conceptualization of the equivalence of

"human" and "person", as grounds for justifying the inclusion of all humans, including embryos,

as a class of entities afforded certain rights, such as the right not to be intentionally killed, then

they will have to do more than base this justification on a "paradigmatic understanding" or upon

a fabricated, shared "rational nature" between an embryo and a mature human being. To offer a

fair reading of George and Tollefsen's position, we could perhaps conclude that embryos have

rights not because they are persons, but because they are human and might one day become

persons; human rights apply equally to all humans.

Prima facie, this may appear to be a legitimate position. After all, we have a Universal

Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), not a Universal Declaration of Human Persons; being

human is what seems to count, not being a person. I would like to presently challenge this

position, by drawing on text from the UDHR itself and by making reference to Donnelly's

concept of functional, international legal, and overlapping consensus universality.

The authors of the UDHR's Preamble do seem to tilt their hats in favour of George and

Tollefsen's argument that all humans are deserving of these rights. They write, "Whereas

recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the

human family..." Article 3 reads, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

And Article 6 reads, "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the

43


law." These excerpts from the UDHR do seem to conceptualize all humans as being persons,

both ontologically and legally, which would seem to confer with George and Tollefsen's position

that even embryos are possessors of rights, such as the right to not be intentionally killed, such as

they are during hESCR. But this is not the whole story told by the UDHR regarding when a

human is and is not considered a person as well.

Article 1 of the UDHR stipulates, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity

and rights, They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in

a spirit of brotherhood."78 This Article, in and of itself challenges the idea that embryos are

considered to be a part of the class of human beings to whom the UDHR applies, in two ways.

First, it says "all humans are born free," which is significantly distinct from asserting that "all

humans are equal in dignity and rights." It seems that according to the UDHR, one is considered

human, and thus a person, once they have been born. Second, Article 1 goes on to say that

humans are "endowed with reason and conscience" and that they "should act towards one another

in a spirit of brotherhood." And as we have already discussed, embryos are entirely without any

capacity for rationality or having a conscience, which strengthens the argument that I am putting

forward: that embryos are not to be considered persons. What is more, because human embryos

lack the abilities of personhood, they are not only not to be considered the subjects of these

rights, they are also unable, at any point (until they are born and later develop the abilities of

personhood), of living up to the reciprocal responsibilities entailed by the UDHR, i.e., not only to

not be intentionally killed, but also to not intentionally kill. Along this same line of reasoning,

embryos cannot be educated, do not possess religious, political or other opinions, do not have a

sense of identity, cannot own property and cannot be married, all of which are issues of concern

for the UDHR. How can human rights be said to apply to embryos when embryos are not the

78 Emphasis added.44


type of beings with interests, and thus not the type of beings to whom any rights, let alone those

of the UDHR, are applicable.

Let us assume, however, that the authors of the UDHR intended no such distinction

between embryo and person, and that it refers to all humans inclusively, without reference to

gestational development or developmental abilities. Would this then mean that we must consider

even embryos to be persons and, thus, afforded the protections of the UDHR? According to

Donnelly, not necessarily. In his paper The Relative Universality of Human Rights Donnelly

discusses how, within an international legal framework for human rights, what is important is

agreement in principle, not identical practices between sovereign states.

According to Donnelly's concept of "functional, international legal, and overlapping

consensus universality," human rights are to be universally relevant and applicable, and thus

functional; they cannot be fashioned in different places in different ways and remain universally

relevant. The result would be a vast array of human rights formulations, and most of the

differences between them would have to be understood as the result of religions, cultures,

bureaucratic and market forces; they ought not to be understood as reflecting a requirement for

protection or entitlement on the basis of our shared humanity. For human rights to be effectively

universal in scope, that is, functional, they must focus solely on the needs of human persons, and

avoiding at all costs, being rooted in any one particular religion or culture.

The next element of Donnelly's concept is international legal universality, by which he

means that these rights must be enshrined in international law, such that universally, the UDHR

and related covenants must be treated as authoritative.79 The rights will be universal when they

reflect the true needs of human persons, are able to function in environments dictated by

bureaucratic and market forces, and when they are enshrined in a substantive and authoritative

79 Donnelly, 2007, 28945


manner in international law.

But what of his concept of overlapping consensus universality? By this Donnelly that the

political nature of human rights will allow for some of the religious and cultural concerns to be

incorporated into domestic laws and policies without violating the spirit or the authority of the

UDHR and its related covenants.80 To restrict all readings of certain language to one and only

one meaning, which he refers to as ontological universality - which stipulates that "...everyone's

conceptual system is centered around common basic categories of objects and their relations to

one another,”81 - is indefensible for three reasons: First, adherents of one ideology will never be

able to convince others that they are right. Second, most comprehensive doctrines (i.e., religion,

culture) have for most of history ignored human rights. And third, nearly all comprehensive

doctrines throughout history have been "objectively false and immoral."82 Human rights then

must be universally effective, but cannot be based on the principles of ontological universality.

Because of the inapplicability of ontological universality to human rights formulations,

Donnelly argues this means that all states do not have to understand, formulate and apply human

rights in an identical manner. This is because, "Particular rights concepts...have multiple

defensible conceptions. Any particular conception, in turn, will have many defensible

implementations."83 Because we are concerned with rights as concepts, we must establish a range

of possible implementations considered to be acceptable, which would in turn facilitate oversight

as to which countries are supporting human rights regimes on par with internationally recognized

standards. Therefore, so long as a country implements human rights concepts that do not violate

international standards, then that country can be said to supporting human rights to the letter of

80 Donnelly, 2007, 289-9181 Gasser, Is There a Universal Ontology?82 Donnelly, 2007, 29383 Donnelly, 2007, 299

46


international law. And as such, countries may vary on such issues as when one is and is not a

person, without failing to violate human rights standards, and this includes permitting or

restricting hESCR. However, Donnelly does foresee that, with time, international coercion will

result in increasing similarity regarding the conceptual understanding of human rights principles,

such as when a human is considered a person, and thus the permissibility of hESCR. And as

such, the "humans, not persons" argument is unsuccessful in challenging my position that

hESCR is ethically permissible.

Insert section on “Hippocratic Oath”.

Conclusion

Embryos are not to be considered persons, as they entirely lack all the abilities required

for personhood; as such, hESCR is ethically permissible. This position is justifiable, as the

philosophical requirements for personhood are not satisfied by embryos, and this is clear from

the philosophical and ethical discussion in this chapter and from the scientific discussion

provided in Chapter 1. It is also evident that the ensoulment, potentiality, symbolist and human

rights arguments are not successful in refuting this ethical position. Now I would like to turn to a

discussion of law and policy within Canada with respect to hESCR.

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Chapter 3 hESCR in a Canadian Context - Analysis and Suggestions

In Chapter 1 I reviewed the science of embryological and fetal development, and of

hESCR methodologies. This informed our philosophical and ethical evaluation of hESCR in

Chapter 2; and specifically with respect to the ethical considerations regarding and the moral

status of the embryo. This resulted in the ethical determination that the embryo is not a person

and, as such, is not protected by such conventions as the UDHR. Because the embryo does not

have these protections, research involving their destruction is not only permissible, it ought to be

considered necessary, given its medical and biological promises. This chapter will be devoted to

evaluate Canadian law and policy that concerns hESCR, as well as a number of suggestions for

modifying certain aspects of hESCR law in Canada, based upon the ethical position I have

developed and on published guidelines and legal precedents in other countries; this will include a

discussion of such things as federal funding, embryonic creation specifically for research, the

need to not offend, and payment for oocytes, sperm and embryo donations, among other highly

ethically debated topics, in hopes of providing arguments to demonstrate the ethical

permissibility of these suggestions.

3.1 hESCR in Canada: Law and Policy

In Canada hESCR is considered permissible, so long as it is conducted on supernumerary

embryos from IVF procedures, and on pre-existing stem cell lines that are in compliance, at

minimum with Canadian legislation, such as the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA),

and, when seeking federal funding, also the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for

Research Involving Humans (TCPS). I will also evaluate such documents as the Human

Pluripotent Stem Cell Research: Recommendations for CIHR Funded Research and Guidelines

for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research: Frequently Asked Questions. When the evaluation is

48


complete and an understanding of current Canadian realities has been achieved, I would like to

provide suggestions regarding the modification of certain aspects of Canadian law, based upon

my own ethical position developed in Chapter 2.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

The AHRA, in Article 5, prohibits the creation of embryos specifically for research

purposes, the creation of embryos using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT - see discussion in

Chapter 1), and maintaining an embryo beyond the fourteenth day outside the female body.

Article 5.1(b) states, "[No one shall knowingly] create an in vitro embryo for any purpose other

than creating a human being or improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction

procedures. Article 5.1(c) states, "[No one shall knowingly] for the purpose of creating a human

being, create an embryo from a cell or part of a cell taken from an embryo or foetus or transplant

an embryo so created into a human being." And Article 5.1(d) states, "[No one shall knowingly]

maintain an embryo outside the body of a female person after the fourteenth day of its

development following fertilization or creation, excluding any time during which its

development has been suspended." This significantly limits the range of embryos which can be

used for hESCR. When the only eligible embryos for research are those in excess from IVF

procedures, the gene pool from which hESC lines can be produced is limited, as it typically

represents a white, middle-to-upper-class demographic, thus rendering them unuseful for some

hESCR, such as diseases and conditions affecting other demographic groups.

Article 7.(2) strictly prohibits the sale or advertisement of sale of a human embryo. 7.2(a)

states, "[No person shall] purchase, offer to purchase or advertise for the purchase of an in vitro

embryo..." Article 7.2(b) states, "[No person shall] sell, offer for sale, or advertise for sale an in

vitro embryo." This also limits the number of new embryos that can be created, as there are some

49


people who would like both to conceive and donate their surplus embryos to hESCR, but are

unable to afford the IVF process. But if these persons were compensated, it would make

artificially conceiving more affordable and would also allow for the creation of new hESC lines

capable of being used in research beneficial to those traditionally under-represented in IVF

procedures. This restriction is put in place because of ethical qualms associated with financial

gain resulting from the direct or indirect destruction of human genetic materials. But if it is

illegal to profit from this research, how should it be possible for any company to derive profits

from products directly or indirectly derived from research involving human subjects and/or

materials. This, too, stands as a challenge to hESCR in Canada, and will be discussed in the next

section within my policy suggestions.

Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research involving Humans

Unlike the AHRA, the TCPS is policy, and only impacts those who receive funding from

the federal government granting agencies, such as the Canadian Institute of Health Research

(CIHR), or it can be adopted and included as part of a private organization's own policy

regarding the ethical conduct of research involving or applicable to human embryonic stem cells.

Article 9.2 states that it is ethically impermissible to use ova or sperm "that have been

obtained through commercial transactions, including exchange for service." Article9.4 appears to

resound the same ethical ruling as the AHRA with respect to creating embryos research , stating

that it is impermissible to do so, but that supernumerary embryos can be used, provided that: they

were not obtained via commercial transaction; the research does not involve genetic alteration;

and that any embryos exposed to manipulations not directed to their ongoing normal

development cannot be used during pregnancy. Article 9.5 prohibits the use of SCNT

procedures.

50


Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research: Recommendations for CIHR-Funded Research

Article 4.5 stipulates that embryos imported from elsewhere within or external to Canada

must have been created in adherence to CIHR guidelines (and thus, Canadian law). Article 4.9

states SCNT research will not be funded. Article 4.10 prohibits donating stem cell )or pluripotent

cell) lines to a particular individual, unless for autologous purposes.

Article 8.1 calls on the CIHR to create a National Stem Cell Oversight Committee

(NSCOC) "to ensure human stem cell research eligible for CIHR funding can be received in a

timely fashion." Article 5.5 states that members of hESC research team cannot be involved in the

consent-gaining process in IVF procedures, to minimize the likelihood of being perceived as

pressuring couples to produce more ova or embryos than are necessary. Article 5.8 states that

researchers should not place pressure on fertility treatment teams to produce more embryos than

are needed.

Article 6.1 calls for all human reproductive materials, once tested, to be anonymized,

except when materials are collected for autologous purposes. Article 8.6 calls for the NSCOC to

be comprised of members that include the general public "in addition to members with expertise

in the areas of stem cell biology and therapeutics, medicine and health care, ethics, law and

social sciences." I disagree with this issue insofar as the general public is concerned, but will

address this in the next section.

Guidelines for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research: frequently Asked Questions

In their answer to Question 7, the CIHR states that policies are only applicable to those

organizations that receive CIHR funding.

Summary of Canadian Law and Policy

In Canada policy largely reflects law, and the law, while allowing for hESCR to be

51


conducted, very much restricts how this research is conducted. In Canada, embryos may only be

created for reproductive purposes, and hESCR may only be permitted on embryos left over from

IVF procedures. And Canada, along with many other countries, has prohibited the advertisement

and commercialization of embryos and other such biological materials, including embryonic

stem cells. What this serves to do is limit the amount of raw materials available to researchers

and stifles research, when it is ethically unnecessary to be so restrictive. The remainder of this

section will consist of a number of legal suggestions for Canada, each with supporting

justifications, while also making reference to established law and policy.

3.2 hESCR in Canada: Legal Suggestions

Federal Human Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Institute

It is my suggestion that a Federal Human Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Institute

(FHEPSCI) be established by Parliament as a separate agency, as specified by the Financial

Administration Act (FAA), whose functions would include: deciding matters of policy, including

updating and revising as required; serving as a regulatory body; being host to the Federal Human

Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Ethics Review Board; being the only funding body at the

federal level for hESCR, thereby centralizing this function within the federal government, and,

thus, enabling better tracking of what projects are being sufficiently funded and which require

more funding. The FHEPSCI will be essential in the coming years, given the pace at which this

research is expanding, and arranging to have these functions housed within a specific

organization will not only increase federal efficiency in this area, as was done with the Canadian

Food Inspection Agency when it was created with respect to food safety, but will also save

having to undergo large government reorganizations after a number of years when the regulatory,

scientific and funding environments will undoubtedly be far more complex.

52


The Minister and Deputy Minister equivalent, at minimum, must each have a recognized

background and expertise in bioethics and the scientific processes involved in hESCR, so that all

legislation impacted by them, and all their official communications are more likely to be based

on evidence and sound reasoning than on misinformation and personal values not necessarily in

line with the best interests of Canadians. The FHEPSCI will be responsible for regulating this

field, and so will require inspectors who are trained in the various minutiae of hESCR such that

they can effectively enter environments in which hESCR is being conducted and determine

whether or not the organization is obeying the letter of the law. Given that the FHEPSCI would

be acting, in part, in a regulatory function, it should also be the responsibility to issue licenses for

any research requiring such legitimization. Those who sit on the federal Human Embryonic and

Pluripotent Stem Cell Ethics Review Board must have an acceptable combination of scientific

and/or ethical expertise such that they can make informed decisions as to what is and is not most

likely ethical. This ethics review board is also responsible for providing licenses to organizations

wishing to conduct research that would require a license.

The FHEPSCI should also serve the function of educating the public about hESCR so

that the public might be better informed and thus be able to more appropriately participate in

public dialogue and debate about the legislation and policies concerning this research. The

FHEPSCI will also be responsible for coordinating public debate and discussion as part of its

public outreach and education programs. And because only one Federal organization is

responsible for public outreach for this subject, the likelihood of mixed messages or

miscommunications occurring will be for less likely than it otherwise would with multiple

organizations trying to each fulfill this function.

In short, the FHEPSCI will be responsible for overseeing and enforcing most of the legal

53


suggestions I am providing below, unless otherwise specified.

Embryo Creation

hESCs can only be created by removing the inner-cell mass (ICM) of the 5-6 day old

(blastocyst-staged) embryo, and only on those embryos left-over from IVF procedures. As such,

the number and variety of eligible embryos significantly affects the amount and variety of

research that can be conducted. As a result, Canadian researchers are limited in the types of

hESCR that they can conduct, and this is because in actuality, not all supernumerary embryos

from IVF procedures can be used: only those embryos that are left-over and whose owners have

consented to be used in hESCR can actually be used. Canada’s ability to lead the world in

hESCR will rely upon the availability of useable raw materials, i.e., embryos, as much as it will

upon the required funding. And the good news is that Canada can, in an ethically permissible

manner, produce embryos specifically for this research, for doing so would not involve creating

persons (or beings who have interests) at all. Because of this ethical permissibility, I argue that

researchers ought to be able to create embryos specifically for research purposes of hESCR, and

that this is permissible by any of the following means: traditional in vitro fertilization; SCNT;

and any other technology that creates embryos for the purposes of hESCR so long as it is in

compliance with all applicable laws and policies. This would allow researchers to create disease-

and/or tissue-specific hESC lines for their use in the study of diseases and injuries, or for

enhanced treatments and new cures for these conditions.

Most laws, policies and guidelines prohibit the intentional creation of embryos for

hESCR, though there are some that do, including Mexico, Belgium, the United Kingdom,

Sweden, Israel, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore and South Africa; while many other countries

in the world lack explicit legislation regarding this issue.84 So there certainly is a number of legal

84 See Annex B.54


precedents already established in other countries allowing embryos to be created specifically for

research purposes, including Democratic countries like the united Kingdom. This, coupled with

the argument that embryos are not persons (or entities with interests), means that Canada has

every reason and justification for legally permitting embryos to be created specifically for

hESCR.

When Must Embryo’s Be Destroyed?

Nearly all countries require the destruction of the embryo after the fourteenth day85 when

the primitive streak, that primordial precursor to the CNS appears. This cut-off date is based on

the belief that something of ethical significance occurs when the primitive streak develops. But

at this point, this is only indicative of the genesis of the CNS, which, including our brains,

become capable of those abilities associated with personhood (and rights) at a much later date.

Though the merit in maintaining the fourteenth day cut-off point is that it helps to control what

types of activities might be done, i.e., the creation of chimeral, hybrid, or other potentially

ethically questionable embryos, as well as the risk of bringing these embryos to term.

Thus considered, I would argue that the fourteen day cut-off date be maintained, but that

certain time extensions be granted to conduct research on embryos after the cut-off if those

proposing to conduct the research can provide sufficient justification(s) for their proposed/said

research to the Federal Human Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Ethics Review Board. This

body would be able to determine if the extension is ethically permissible, and if they conclude

that it is, the board would grant a license to the organization proposing to conduct the research.

Inspectors from the FHEPSCI will also be responsible for ensuring that the organization is

adhering to the terms and conditions described in the license as well as for compliance with all

85 Including Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. (Isasi and Knoppers, 2006, 16.)

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other legislation and policies.

Advertisement and Payment for Oocytes, Sperm, Embryos and hESC Lines

Current legislation prohibits both 1) purchasing, offering to purchase, or advertising for

the purchase of an embryo, and 2) selling, offering to sell, or advertising the sale of embryos.

And policy currently prohibits commercialized transactions involving embryos and hESC lines;

requiring that any monies exchanged be in exchange for expenses incurred, verifiable with a

receipt. And this despite pharmaceutical companies being able to patent human biological

materials and to earn obscene profits on therapies, treatments and cures derived from

experimentation on human biological materials and humans themselves. Because there is no

ethically justifiable reason for restricting payments (for these are not entities with interests,

concerns or rights - and thus not in any way equivalent to such things as slavery), anyone

imposing such restrictions, while allowing for pharmaceutical gain, is ultimately responsible for

hypocritical ethical practices.

As for the actual amount of monies that should be expended for compensating individuals

and couples for donations of oocytes, sperm, embryos, and somatic cells, one must choose a sum

that will reflect an appreciation of the donation, but not be so large that it is perceived as enticing

people to make these donations, especially when women are concerned, as producing oocytes for

collection requires the injection of hormones and there are a number of possible complications

associated with this procedure. This, I believe specifics such as this should be determined at such

time that these suggestions would be integrated into legislation.

Current requirements for expenditures associated with these biological materials state that

receipts must be provided. This too is useful for figuring what amount of compensation should

be paid; but by considering expenditures as being additional to compensation, a more consistent

56


sum can be agreed to, thereby also reducing the risk of irregularities with appropriating such

monies.

Consent and Conflict of Interest

In the case of requirements for consent, I am in agreement with current policy; consent

must be given for any and all donated materials (oocytes, sperm, embryos and somatic cells),

used in the course of hESCR. Providing informed consent reduces the risk of people being

manipulated or intentionally misled by those obtaining consent. To mitigate this risk further still,

the party seeking consent must be fully aware of the scientific and moral concerns pertaining to

the specific use of the donated materials, and this person must be completely unaffiliated with

those conducting the research, thus minimizing even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Role of Religion

Given the analyses provided in Chapters 1 and 2, I would like to argue that religion

should in no way be involved in determining legislation regarding hESCR. Any argument that

has religious belief as its basis has no place influencing any legislation, including hESCR, as the

problems inherent in at least some religious positions, such as ensoulment, are based on

theology, and not necessarily science, philosophy or ethics. This is not to say that a religious

person cannot be involved in matters affecting hESCR legislation and policy, but it does mean

that religion itself has no place at the table.

The Role of the Public

Most laws and policies call for the public to be involved in deciding issues of legislation

with respect to hESCR. I, however, disagree with this assessment of the role of the public should

play. As the first two chapters of this paper illustrate, understanding what is involved in hESCR

requires familiarity with many aspects of science, and work that involves deciding on the

57


permissibility of this research requires a grounding in both ethics and philosophy. Therefore, any

person that would like to be officially engaged in these issues needs to be able to firmly grasp the

science, philosophy and ethics pertaining to hESCR. Unfortunately, however, most people do not

possess this type of familiarity.

This does not mean, however, that most of the public needs to be uninvolved in helping

to establish, modify or maintain this legislation. It does, however, mean that the public needs to

be informed, viz. through public awareness and outreach initiatives about what hESCR is and

about the dispelling the perceived philosophical and ethical problems inherent to this research

are (this would be the responsibility of the FHEPSCI). And before any member of the public can

become officially involved in helping to establish, modify or maintain the legislation, they

should have to pass an aptitude test demonstrating that they possess a sufficient enough

understanding of the various aspects of hESCR to be qualified to be involved in this manner.

By extension, any person representing a constituency of this country within Parliament

has a responsibility to direct the public to official informational and educational materials

released by the FHEPSCI, as there is an onus placed on the disseminator of information that the

information they provide is straightforward and honest. This mitigates the risk of having

government at least appearing to have certain partisan biases. That said, certain MPs, like Paul

Szabo, do not maintain this spirit of ideological impartiality, and I would like to examine more

closely why this is problematic.

In his 2002 publication, The Ethics and Science of Stem Cells, written in support of his

Private Member’s legislative initiative, Paul Szabo, MP for Mississauga South, claims that:

The objective of this book is to provide a foundation of information on what has arguable become the debate of the millennium. It looks at the complexities of procreation; explains the science of stem cells; highlights what research has been done to date; and presents the

58


related moral and ethical concerns.86

He believes that this book will gives its readers a bearing in the literature concerning hESCR,

and that they will afterwards also become capable of developing an informed opinion.

Szabo, however, is far from giving an objective representation of any of the elements of

hESCR, except for perhaps ever reminding the reader that hESCR is a contentious issue. His

arguments are all biased in favour of severely restricting research, and perhaps even banning it if

alternatives, such as hASCs are available.87 Not once in his entire publication does Szabo provide

a serious argument in favour of hESCR; but nearly every page contains warnings or moral and

ethical cautions or damnations of this research. Anyone reading this book who did not have prior

knowledge of hESCR would likely develop a negative attitude towards it. And we cannot have

this in mind when we mean to inform the public about this or any other issue, and stresses the

need of the FHEPSCI (or an equivalent body) to provide this information in an ethically

responsible way. As such, MPs and all other members of Parliament ought to refrain from

producing information of this nature unless it explicitly makes reference to any bias held by the

author.

In short, the public is entitled to participate in these discussions, but only provided that

they have been informed of what is entailed by hESCR, including an ethical awareness of this

issue. But unless those involved in legislative discussions are sufficiently informed, then their

participation is not worth very much at all. After all, you would not approach someone with no

knowledge of television repair to fix your television for you, and by the same token, you would

not ask someone who is certified only to repair plasma televisions to fix your LCD. As such,

86 Szabo, 2002, 5.87 As discussed in Chapter 1, however, hESCs and hASCs are not equivalent in their abilities. hASCs are more differentiated than are hESCs, meaning that they cannot become all the types of tissues and cells in the body like hESCs can. Because hASCs cannot become as many different types of cells as hESCs can, hASCs are far more limited for research purposes, and should not be considered equivalent to hESCs.

59


people with no knowledge of hESCR should not be involved in public debate or legislative

discussions about hESCR, nor should those people who have an unshakable bias of any variety.

Conclusion

The current status of legislation and policy in Canada is permissive towards hESCR, but

it is also, in a simultaneous manner, unnecessarily restrictive in certain respects, such as

permitting research only on those supernumerary embryos from IVF procedures, restricting

payments for the donation of human biological materials, and regarding when embryos must be

destroyed. Canada’s restrictions are limiting the amount and genetic diversity of materials

available for use by researchers, and are thus impeding this research, despite there being no

ethical qualms with becoming more permissive with our legislation. My legislative suggestions

include: establishing a Federal Human Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Institute; allowing

for the creation of embryos specifically for hESCR; permitting embryos to be kept alive beyond

fourteen days if valid justification can be provided; and placing restrictions on those who can be

involved is discussing and establishing legislation in this area (requiring those that are involved

to have a certain level of understanding regarding the science and the ethics of hESCR.

60


Conclusion

Over the course of this paper I examined the science surrounding hESCR so that I might

present a sound and justified philosophical and ethical discussion of the embryo, which I used to

inform my evaluation of Canadian legislation and policy regarding hESCR, as well as for

offering a number of legislative suggestions that would enhance the quality and breadth of

research being conducted in Canada, without ethically compromising to do so. Chapter 1 allowed

us to determine that during the embryonic stage of gestation, the young human is entirely without

mental events like sentience, consciousness or being able to develop a sense of personal identity.

These abilities are not gained until later in development, and some are not present until the child

is about 18 months. This chapter also focussed on the various stem cell procurement

methodologies and how they are presently being used by researchers.

Chapter 2 relied on the scientific evaluation of hESCs and related research from Chapter

1 to consider the embryo both philosophically and ethically in order to determine if it is the type

of entity with protections characteristic of human persons. From this discussion, I determined

that there is no evidence to suggest that the embryo can validly be considered a person. In order

to help ensure that this position is indeed appropriate, I considered a number of arguments that

directly challenged this position, including the ensoulment and the potentiality arguments, which

I found to be unsuccessful in their challenges.

Chapter 3 allowed for an evaluation of the current realities within Canada insofar as

hESCR legislation and policy is concerned. Following this survey, I provided a number of

legislative suggestions regarding hESCR. The first suggestion involves the creation of a Federal

Human Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Institute (FHEPSCI), which would be responsible

for such things as: establishing and modifying legislation; housing the Federal Human

61


Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cell Ethics Review Board; conducting public awareness and

educational outreach campaigns; and being the sole federal funding authority for hESCR in

Canada. Further suggestions include permitting the creation of embryos specifically for research

involving their destruction, and requiring all those involved in influencing policy or legislation

must satisfy certain knowledge requirements, including certain levels of understanding of

hESCR itself (scientifically and ethically).

Canada stands to be able to make great contributions to the field of hESCR by

performing more varied research and increasing federal funding. And what is more, Canada can

do this without advocating or endorsing unethical scientific practices. Embryos are entirely

without the mental abilities characteristic of those beings whom we consider to possess ethical

significance, and thus, not the type of entity that deserves moral protections. Not only are we

without ethical or moral conundrums insofar as hESCR is concerned, but because of the promise

these cells hold to revolutionizing how we treat hundreds of diseases and other physical

conditions, using these cells might even be considered obligatory from an ethical or moral

perspective.

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Annex A: The Blastocyst and How hESC Lines are Procured

Figure 1.188

88 Henriksen, 9. This is a graphic representation of the blastocyst-staged embryo and clearly distinguishes between the trophoblast and the inner cell mass (ICM), from which hESCs are removed.

63


Figure 1.289

89 Henriksen, 10. This provides a graphic explanation of the process followed for procuring an hESC line from hESC cells.

64


Annex B: hESCR Law Around the World

- Canada permits research on existing hESC lines and those created from excess IVF embryos.- The US permits research on existing hESC lines and has new legislation pending.- Mexico permits research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos and

those embryos created specifically for research purposes.- All other North American countries lack explicit legislation in the area of hESCR.http://isscr.org/public/regions/region.cfm?RegionID=6

- Belgium and the United Kingdom permit research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos, those embryos created specifically for research purposes, and those created form somatic cell nuclear transfer. Sweden also permits this same research, and has legislation currently pending.

- The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland permit research on existing hESC lines and those created from excess IVF embryos.

- Finland and the Ukraine permit research on existing hESC lines and those created from excess IVF embryos. Finland has legislation currently being considered and the Ukraine lacks explicit legislation.

- Austria does not currently permit hESC research but does have legislation being considered.- Ireland, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia do not permit research on existing hESC lines.- Italy and Norway do not permit research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess

IVF embryos, those embryos created specifically for research purposes, or those created form somatic cell nuclear transfer. Italy specifically does not even have legislation being considered.

- Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, and Romania all lack explicit legislation.

- Monaco, San Marino, Serbia and Montenegro and Vatican City all lack any specific mentioning.

http://isscr.org/public/regions/region.cfm?RegionID=1

- Israel permits research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos, those embryos created specifically for research purposes, and those created form somatic cell nuclear transfer.

- Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen all lack explicit legislation.


- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all lack explicit legislation.


- Australia, China, Japan and Singapore permit research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos, those embryos created specifically for research purposes, and

65






those created form somatic cell nuclear transfer. Australia and Japan have legislation currently being considered.

- India, New Zealand, Taiwan, permit research on existing hESC lines and those created from excess IVF embryos, and both have legislation currently being considered.

- South Korea permits research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos and those created from somatic cell nuclear transfer.

- Turkey permits research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos and those embryos created specifically for research purposes.

- All other Asian countries lack explicit legislation.http://isscr.org/public/regions/region.cfm?RegionID=2

- South Africa permits research on existing hESC lines, those created from excess IVF embryos, those embryos created specifically for research purposes, and those created form somatic cell nuclear transfer.

- All other African countries lack explicit legislation.http://isscr.org/public/regions/region.cfm?RegionID=5

- Brazil permits research on existing hESC lines and those created from excess IVF embryos.- All other South American countries lack explicit legislation.http://isscr.org/public/regions/region.cfm?RegionID=7

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Annex C

Distribution of Two-Element Semantic Relations in Kanzi’s Corpus90

Relation No. Example (of dominant order)

Action-Action 92TICKLE BITE, then positions himself for researcher to tickle and bite him.

Action-AgentAgent-Action

11913

CARRY person (gesture), gesturing to Phil, whoagrees to carry Kanzi.

Action-ObjectObject-Action

3915

KEEP AWAY BALLOON, wanting to teaseBill with a balloon and start a fight.

Object-AgentAgent-Object

71

BALLOON person (gesture), Kanzi gesturesto Liz; Liz gives Kanzi balloon.

Entity-DemonstrativeDemonstrative-Entity

18267

PEANUT that (gesture), points to peanuts incooler.

Goal-ActionAction-Goal

4610

COKE CHASE, then researcher chases Kanzi toplace in woods where coke is kept.

Entity-Entity 25

M&M GRAPE. Caregiver/researcher: “You wantboth of these foods?” Kanzi vocalizes and puts his hand out.

Location-Location 7SUE’S OFFICE CHILDSLIDE, wanted to go to these two places.

Location-EntityEntity-Location

1912

PLAYYARD AUSTIN, wants to visit Austin inthe playyard.

Entity-AttributeAttribute-Entity

1210

FOOD BLACKBERRY, after eating blackberriesto request more.

Miscellaneous Relations 37

These include low frequency (less than seven) such as attribute of action, attribute of location, affirmation, negation, and those involving an instrument.

Two-Mode Paraphrase 4CHASE chase (gesture), trying to get staff member to chase him to the lobby.

No Direct Relation 6POTATO OIL. Kanzi commented after researcher had put oil on him as he was eating a potato.

Total 723

90 Savage-Rumbaugh, 1996, 28167


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