ABSTRACT
It is becoming increasingly clear that the ethical controversy over the legitimacy of stem cell research, and embryonic cloning in particular, is proving difficult to resolve. In the US, the President’s Council on Bioethics has called for a moratorium on embryonic cloning, pending further public debate.1 In September 2003 the European Commission adopted a temporary moratorium on the funding of stem cell research under the Framework 6 programme, also pending further discussion by EU organs. In the meantime, the Commission issued a report, Commission Staff Working Paper Report on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research,2 to provide background factual information on scientific, legal and social aspects of embryonic stem cell research. The report notes that, in its Opinion No 15 on ethical aspects of human stem cell research and use, the European Group on Ethics (EGE)3 recommended a precautionary approach, condemning the creation of embryos for the sole purpose of research as this ‘represents a further step in the instrumentalisation of human life’, and a moratorium on the creation of embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer for therapeutic purposes. The opinion of the EGE rested on the identification of a set of ‘fundamental ethical principles’ which were said to be applicable to embryonic stem cell research and included, inter alia, the principle of respect for human dignity, the principle of individual autonomy, justice and beneficence, freedom of research and proportionality. Notwithstanding this, the Commission found that ‘opinions on the legitimacy of experiments using human embryos are divided according to the different ethical, philosophical, and religious traditions in which they are rooted’.4 EU Member States have taken very different positions regarding the regulation of human embryonic stem cell research with the Commission’s report confirming that ‘there exists different views exist throughout the European Union concerning what is and what is not ethically defensible’.5 Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly evident that the ethical differences are irreconcilable. At the inter-institutional seminar of 24 April 2003, the Commission concluded that ‘despite all attempts to reduce the scope of the ethical debate, on the crucial issue of research using spare human embryos created for in vitro fertilisation purposes, the fundamentally incompatible moral positions of different Member States could not be reconciled’.6 The proposed
1 President’s Council on Bioethics, 2002. Professor Leon Kass was chairman and had previously expressed his opposition to cloning in Kass, 2000.
