Faculty Bibliography

Pluripotent human stem cell research may offer new treatments for hundreds of diseases, but opponents of this research argue that such therapy comes attached to a Faustian bargain: cures at the cost of the destruction of many frozen embryos. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), government officials, and many scholars of bioethics, including, in these pages, John Robertson, have not offered an adequate response to ethical objections to stem cell research. Instead of examining the ethical issues involved in sacrificing human embryos for the goal of curing fatal and disabling diseases, they seek to either dismiss the moral concerns of those with objections or to find an "accomodation" with those opposed to stem cell research. An ethical argument can be made that it is justifiable to modify or destroy certain human embryos in the pursuit of cures for dread and lethal diseases. Until this argument is made, the case for stem cell research will rest on political foundations rather than on the ethical foundations that the funding of stem cell research requires.

One of the Houston octuplets was born 12 weeks premature. The rest are at least 10 weeks early. Each of the babies is very tiny. Their organs are barely developed. Size matters where babies are concerned. There is a very real possibility that some or all of the babies will die. There is an even greater possibility that some or all of them will go through life with severe or moderate disabilities directly traceable to their prematurity. And their prematurity is a direct result of the decision to create a pregnancy of many babies

HEALTH AND Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has proposed a change in the regulations governing who gets a transplant. If her proposal becomes law, organs would be issued from a single national waiting list, with the sickest patients getting top priority