Today, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist established his support for expansion of embryonic stem cell research funded by the Federal government.  He indicated that he now considers President Bush's 2001 policy too limiting in the number of stem cell lines that it allows to qualify for embryonic stem cell research.  Frist wants to allow excess embryos from in vitro fertilization to be donated by the parents for research, if they would otherwise discard them.  In effect, Frist is willing to let the parents be responsible for the decision to kill their excess embryos and then step in to encourage the parents to allow these embryos to be killed for scientific progress so at least "some good" comes from them.

 

At the same time Frist acknowledges that these embryos are "nascent human life" that is "genetically distinct" and "biologically human".  These facts lead Frist to conclude that a human embryo "deserves to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect."  He fails to explain how killing this human embryo to obtain its stem cells offers it this utmost dignity and respect.  How does Senator Frist define the terms "dignity" and "respect"?  One can only conclude that Senator Frist has fallen into the trap of the end justifies the means.  In this case, dignity and respect are achieved through scientific progress while ignoring that the means required to achieve this progress involves killing the embryo.

President Bush's policy refused to allow any more killing of human embryos for Federally funded research.  Funds could only be made available for stem cell lines that had already been created.  While this policy may not have been morally perfect, it does prevent the killing of human embryos with Federal funds so it achieves ethical clarity.  In contrast, Senator Frist wants to fund the ongoing killing of human embryos for stem cell research as long as the parents are willing to discard their embryos.  Such a policy lacks ethical clarity and can only lead to further justification for more killing by establishing even more circumstances where the end is found to justify the means.