Speaking at the Oxford International Biomedical Centre symposium on "New Body Parts for Old: Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine” professor Richard Gardner delivered a talk entitled "Stem Cells: What They Are and Why They Are Important." According to the Daily Mail*, Gardner promoted the issue that kidney and liver tissue from aborted fetuses offer "at least a temporary solution" to the shortage of available organs for people in need of transplants. Calling for studies into the feasibility of transplanting fetal organs, Sir Richard, an advisor to Britain's fertility watchdog and the Royal Society, said he was surprised the possibility had not been considered. Commentators have been quick to link ethical and moral issues between human embryonic stem cell research and fetal tissue donation. William Saletan writing for Slate ** considers:  “two arguments have persuaded the United States to fund stem-cell research using destroyed embryos. One is that the research will save lives. The other is that the embryos, left over from fertility treatments, will otherwise be wasted. Both arguments are now being applied to fetuses’” However, I believe this to be a poor attempt to gloss over the inextricable ethical principles which when applied to each situation produce very different conclusions.

Whilst there can be no argument that the organ donation process needs to be improved, with far too few people registering to be donors in relation to the number of organs needed each year. However, is it right to argue that we should procure organs or tissue at the expense of aborted fetuses? Can we really use the argument that if it is acceptable in the name of stem cell research, must it also be acceptable in the case of fetuses? Let’s take for a moment the issue moral status. It can be argued in many ways that the moral status of an embryo can be distinct from the moral status of the fetus and as such we must assign individual status when discussing the two cases.

The moral status of the human embryo is commonly assigned in three strands: 1. that the human embryo has no intrinsic moral status and derives its value from others; 2. that the human embryo has intrinsic moral value independent from how others value it; 3. finally that the human embryo begins with little or no moral status and continues to acquire more and more status as they develop. Many philosophers and scientists have argued for a developmental model of the moral status of the human embryo, beginning with the claim that developmental changes in the embryo have moral significance because they represent, if not ‘ensoulment’, the development of concomitant ability of the being to participate in the human community along with an increasing viability, should all thing be allowed to continue as natural. This argument becomes furthermore evident when you consider current abortion legislation and will become applicable when discussing the moral status of the fetus. Whilst we are able to make a distinction between moral status principles it is also possible to make the distinction between the embryo created in utero and in vitro.
 
Embryos used during research including stem cell research are always created in vitro, either specifically for research purposes or surplus from IVF treatment. This differentiation, affects moral status. In this case it is believed that the human embryo has no intrinsic moral status. It is very difficult to assign any other status when you consider that the embryo we are discussing is a five cell blastocyst incapable of surviving if left to its own devices, and not successfully implanted into a woman. The embryo is simply an organism with a potential to be human life if scientific and medical intervention were to be applied, therefore the research and destruction of an embryo at this stage can not be morally problematic. Just how then is it possible to assign the same morality to a fetus between 8 to 24 weeks of development?

It is not until the 8th week of development an embryo will officially be considered a fetus. It is during this period of development that the embryonic tail has disappeared and all organs, muscles, and nerves begin to function. Surly this distinction is important and once again moral status must be considered. It would be at this point that I would argue that a fetus has intrinsic moral value independent from how others value it, which is ever increasing throughout the next stages of development. From this point onwards week by week a fetus is growing, learning and imitating human behaviour. The use of 4D scans have shown a fetus at 20 week smiling, opening its eyes, sucking its thumb and even ‘playing’ with the umbilical cord***. How could you not assign personhood at this stage? This is reflected further in legislation through the Abortion Act 1967 and Human Embryology and Human Fertilisation Act 2008 which time limits abortions to 24 weeks, plus there is a constant call for this time limit to be reduced to 20 weeks thanks to advances in neonatal medicine which now gives a 10 per cent chance of survival which is surely better than nothing?

In my opinion fetal organ donation can never be considered in the same context as embryo research. As I hope to have shown it can be argued that there is an intrinsic moral difference between an embryo created in vitro and a fetus that has been denied the right to life for whatever reason.

Footnotes:

* ‘Use aborted fetus organs in transplants, urges  scientist’ 11th March 2009, Daily Mail,

** ‘Drill Babies, Drill- If harvesting embryos is ok, how about fetuses’; William Saletan; 13th March 2009, Slate 

*** ‘Professor Stuart Campbell Time to rethink the abortion law’ 2nd May 2008, Telegraph.  

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