Medical Ethics: the Beginning of Life

Overview

Recall questions on the moral status of the embryo, sanctity and quality of life, embryo research, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, stem cells and cord blood, IVF, abortion and British law, and double effect at the beginning of life.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What positions are taken on when an embryo acquires moral status?

   Model answer

   Roman Catholic teaching holds that the embryo must be treated as a person from fertilisation, since that is when a genetically distinct human individual exists. British law follows the Warnock committee in treating fourteen days, when the primitive streak appears and twinning is no longer possible, as the point after which research is prohibited. Others locate status at the onset of brain activity, at viability, or at birth, while gradualists hold that moral status increases through development. Many rabbinic authorities regard the foetus as part of the mother until birth, and many Muslim scholars date ensoulment to one hundred and twenty days.

2. 2

   What does the sanctity of life doctrine claim, and how strong is the claim?

   Model answer

   That human life is intrinsically valuable because it is given by God and made in God's image, so it is not ours to dispose of. In its strong form all innocent human life is inviolable regardless of its condition, which rules out abortion and euthanasia absolutely. Weaker versions hold that life is a great good and creates a presumption against killing that can in extreme cases be outweighed, which is how many Protestant, Jewish and Muslim authorities reason when a mother's life is at risk.

3. 3

   How does a quality of life approach differ from a sanctity of life approach?

   Model answer

   It asks not whether a life is human but whether it is worth living to the one living it, using criteria such as the capacity for experience, relationship and freedom from unbearable suffering. Supporters argue this takes the patient's actual situation seriously rather than applying a rule from outside. Critics answer that it makes worth conditional and puts judgement about whose life counts into the hands of others, which disability rights advocates regard as dangerous.

4. 4

   Why is embryo research contested?

   Model answer

   Because it typically destroys the embryo. Those who grant full status from fertilisation regard it as killing a human being for the benefit of others, however great the benefit. Those who see early moral status as minimal weigh a very small claim against real prospects of treating serious disease, and point to the regulatory limit and licensing regime as evidence that the practice is bounded rather than unlimited.

5. 5

   What ethical issues does pre-implantation genetic diagnosis raise?

   Model answer

   Screening embryos created by IVF allows a couple at risk of a serious inherited condition to implant only unaffected embryos, which spares suffering but requires discarding the others. It has been used to select a tissue-matched sibling who can donate to an existing sick child, raising the objection that the new child is created as a means. Disability advocates make the expressivist objection that screening out a condition sends a message that people living with it should not have been born, and critics warn of extension from disease to traits.

6. 6

   Why are stem cells and cord blood treated differently?

   Model answer

   Embryonic stem cells are the most versatile but obtaining them destroys the embryo, which is what generates the objection. Adult stem cells and cord blood collected after birth raise no such problem, since nothing is destroyed, and cord blood banking is widely accepted across religious traditions. Induced pluripotent stem cells, reprogrammed from ordinary adult cells, have weakened the argument that embryonic sources are indispensable, though researchers dispute how far they substitute.

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