Against the discarded-created distinction in embryonic stem cell research

Most of the ethical debate about whether we should support human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research turns on a fundamental disagreement about how we should treat early human embryos. As it is currently done, the isolation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) involves dismantling the early human embryo – a process the embryo does not survive. Many people accord significant value to the human embryo (henceforth ‘embryo’) and think that embryos may not simply be used in whatever way suits our research interests. However, hESC research holds unique promise for developing therapies for currently incurable diseases, as well as for important biomedical research and drug and toxicity testing. This creates a dilemma: either one supports hESC research and accepts resulting embryo destruction, orone opposes hESC research and accepts that its potential benefits will be foregone.

Of course, for some people there is no dilemma. If you believe an early human embryo is merely a collection of cells that has very little value in itself, the embryo’s moral status provides no reason to abstain from hESC research. On the other hand, if you believe that the embryo has the same moral status as a typical adult human, then isolating hESCs is equivalent to murder and is clearly unjustified. But for those who accord lesser but still significant moral status to the embryo, the dilemma is very real.

A popular response to the dilemma has been to adopt some intermediate position between the dominant opposed ethical views that the moral status of the embryo always and never gives us decisive reasons to abstain from hESC research. One such intermediate position that has been widely defended and that serves as a basis for stem cell policy in many western countries, including the US under the Obama administration, is the so-called ‘discarded-created distinction’