USA : la recherche sur les embryons humains est un outil de mort.

A propos de la recherche sur les embryons humains et de ses alternatives possibles, la revue New Atlantis réfléchit sur le statut des embryons humains et s’oppose à leur destruction pour la recherche. "Nous ne devons pas permettre à notre désir de progrès scientifique, de thérapies ou de soins, d'assombrir notre jugement sur ce que sont les embryons humains et sur ce que cela signifie pour nous de les tuer délibérément", ont conclu Robert P. George, de la Princeton University et membre de Conseil de Bioéthique du Président, et Patrick Lee, de l'Université Franciscaine de Steubenville.

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) recently invited two members of the President’s Council on Bioethics to reflect on the ethics of using embryonic stem cells in biomedical research. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, explained his opposition to the destruction of human embryos created by the union of gametes, but sought to distinguish such embryos from what he dubbed “clonotes”: that is, embryos brought into being by cloning (a process known technically as “somatic cell nuclear transfer” or SCNT). He argued that human “clonotes” are not really human embryos, and thus do not enjoy the high moral status of embryos brought into being by ordinary sexual intercourse or by the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF). These “clonotes,” McHugh argued, may be legitimately destroyed for purposes of stem cell harvesting, so long as they are destroyed before the fourteenth day of their development. Michael Sandel, a professor of political theory at Harvard University, defended the killing of human embryos in biomedical research without regard to the method by which such embryos are brought into being. In his view, human embryos, whether produced by union of sperm and egg or by somatic cell nuclear transfer, are not entitled to the moral immunity against direct attack that is enjoyed by human beings at later developmental stages.

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But are human embryos human beings? Indeed they are, and contemporary human embryology and developmental biology leave no significant room for doubt about it. The adult human being reading these words was, at an earlier stage of his or her life, an adolescent, and before that an infant. At still earlier stages he or she was a fetus and before that an embryo. In the infant, fetal, and embryonic stages, each of us was then what we are now, namely, a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens. Each of us developed by a gradual, unified, and self-directed process from the embryonic into and through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages of human development, and into adulthood, with his or her determinateness, unity, and identity fully intact. Although none of us was ever a sperm cell or an ovum—the sperm and ovum from whose union we emerged were genetically and functionally parts of other human beings—each of us was once an embryo, just as we were once infants, children, and adolescents. In referring to “the embryo,” then, we are referring not to something distinct from the human being that each of us is, but rather to a certain stage in the development of each human being—like saying “the teenager” or “the five-year old.”

Some scientists and philosophers who agree with us about the status of human embryos as human beings nevertheless believe (mistakenly, in our view) that killing embryos in biomedical research can be justified. Some defend embryo-killing on utilitarian grounds, by asserting that killing a few thousand embryos today will help millions of suffering patients in the future. Others argue that no wrong is done in destroying “spare” IVF embryos that would otherwise be permanently frozen or discarded. There are, however, scholars who are prepared to deny that human embryos are human beings. Michael Sandel does just that in his NEJM article. He defends embryo-killing in biomedical research on the ground that human embryos and human beings are different kinds of entities.

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McHugh has one more argument. Relying on testimony given by Rudolf Jaenisch at the July 24, 2003 meeting of the President’s Council on Bioethics, McHugh asserts that “SCNT performed with primate cells produces embryos with such severe epigenetic problems that they cannot survive to birth.” The first thing to notice about this assertion is that it concedes that the entities produced by SCNT are, in fact, embryos, albeit severely disabled ones. More importantly, Jaenisch’s testimony does nothing to prove that disabled or “defective” embryos lack moral worth. As we mentioned above, in some cases reproduction fails because fertilization is incomplete, and in such a case there is a growth (for example, a complete hydatidiform mole) but there is not a human embryo. But if SCNT is successful then it generates a distinct organism with the full genetic program and active disposition to develop itself in accord with that program (even if it also has a defect which will cause its early death). There are newborn infants who, as a result of genetic diseases, are destined to die in a matter of days or even hours. This fact does not alter their status as human beings. It would be scandalous to suppose that it authorizes us to treat afflicted children as impersonal collections of organs available for transplantation and research.

Human beings may be severely afflicted at any developmental stage, from the embryonic to the adult. All of us will eventually die, and many of us will die as a result of factors in our genetic makeup from the point at which we came into being. From the moral viewpoint, the certainty of death—whether in ninety years or nine minutes—does not alter our inherent dignity or relieve others of the obligation to respect our lives. That someone will soon die, no matter what we do, is never a license for killing him. That the human being whose death is imminent happens to be at an earlier rather than later stage of development is morally irrelevant. Cloned human embryos are still embryonic human beings, and the fact that this particular way of initiating human life (SCNT) might harm human life does not give us a license to destroy cloned embryos or a reason to pretend that these living organisms are mere artifacts. The New Atlantis, no. 7, autunno 2004/inverno 2005, pp. 90-100- Robert P. George and Patrick Lee