Word: embryos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...past two hundred years, the view that the embryo may not be fully human has been in near total eclipse. All modern Popes have opposed abortion from the instant of conception, and the Second Vatican Council termed abortion "an unspeakable crime." In recent years the church has shown a willingness to cast a fresh eye at the morality of nuclear war and capital punishment, a trend that may reinforce its desire to protect embryonic life...
...Research and Education Center in St. Louis, argued sweepingly before the congressional hearings that there is "no evidence of a threshold, a starting point other than fertilization itself, for the beginning of human nature." This is a standard argument against abortion, but McCarthy used it to endow every new embryo with a panoply of civil rights. These included a right not to be frozen, a right not to be experimented on, a right not to be destroyed, even a right not to be created at all except as a consequence of "personal self-giving and conjugal love...
Neither current law nor current custom supports such an array of rights, however. On the contrary, a pregnant woman's right of decision is generally considered paramount, at least during the first three months. Even so, says Professor Maurice Mahoney of Yale's medical school, every embryo deserves a certain respect. "I see it as an individual human being," he says, "not with the same claims and rights as a newborn baby, but at least as an individual who calls upon me for some kind of protectiveness...
...creation of extra embryos raises a number of delicate problems. Aside from the question of whether they have a "right" to be implanted (most experts deny it), doctors say they are needed for research. Some even favor creating embryos deliberately for the sake of research. But what exactly is "research"? Ideally, it is some experimental treatment that will help the embryo itself. Some states-Minnesota, for; example-prescribe that any experimentation must be known to be harmless. A number of authorities also believe that experimentation should be limited to the first 14 days after fertilization. There are scientists, however...
There are also tricky questions posed by the financing of the new technology. Dr. John Buster of the UCLA School of Medicine has been working since 1979 to develop a technique of embryo transplants for women who are unable to conceive but able to carry a child to term. The husband's sperm is used to impregnate a woman artificially; the embryo is then flushed out and implanted in the man's wife. The first two babies to be produced by this method were born this year...