Stem Cells: Equity or Ownership?

It is a difficult time to focus on stem cell research. But it must be noted that before September 11th, 2001, the United States sustained a remarkable and prolonged discussion of matters bioethical. The president rose to the occasion, it might be argued, by delivering a speech that at once acknowledged the difficulty of developing stem cell research in a responsible way and addressed the importance of "breakfast table" conversations by ordinary Americans about the matter. The stem cell debate might have diminished into a simple but odious battle about abortion politics, but instead it became an avenue for bioethics to show its very best qualities: bioethics' emphasis on public education put the stem cell debate into schools and on the Internet and in the discourse of clergy. Bioethicists' analysis of subtle and complex issues, nonetheless aimed at a broad audience, enabled a Congress and two presidents to think more clearly about ethical issues even at a time when scientific literacy in those bodies is at its all-time nadir. And bioethics rose in the national standing, so much so that attacks on the idea of "ethical expertise" became a common reaction to the ubiquitousness of bioethicists on television. But that was before 11 September. Today, stem cells have a broader context, one that really is about justice and priorities in international health. The present collection is in that spirit; it is an analysis of stem cell research that reaches beyond simple political realities into complex relationships in science and society.

In the first part of the target article set, Laurie Zoloth seeks to place the stem cell controversy in a historical perspective. She calls on us to think in an "Exodic" way, to ask what ought to be rather than to battle the "is." She poses the question of whether stem cell research is in effect something so important to us and to the essence of our lives that we have a positive duty to pursue it. By paralleling our current situation to both the Hebrew people about to enter their promised land and to the English immigrants onboard the Mayflower about to embark onto their land of opportunity, Laurie Zoloth transports us right to the dividing line of stem cell research, which we must either cross or leave ahead of us, untouchable. To determine which direction we are taking, she contends that we must in an important way attend to the vulnerable and "forgotten."

Jane Maienschein takes on the stem cell debate in terms of the underlying questions of philosophy of biology, asking how we are to define all the new and renewed language of stem cell research. There is the problem of making up a new lexicon to account for a new biology, a task she sees as essential to any arguments or policies about stem cells. More importantly, Maienschein argues that this is not a matter of "reading the facts" in dishes. She holds that we should arrive at unambiguous definitions and semantics, but within constraints that are profound--and which make it clear that scientists cannot complete the task alone. She describes the evolution of terms by examining how different embryologists, morphologists, philosophers, and theologians have coined terms that have been altered in their meaning over the years due in large part to new developments in technology. Maienschein urges us to study and understand the new vocabulary, especially if we are directly involved in the policy debates about human embryonic stem (hES) research, and she calls upon scientists in particular to make sure that politicians fully comprehend this vocabulary so that they can formulate the most informed and scientifically accurate policies.

Ronald Green wants to know what is required in order to think of an embryo as having the moral status of a person and when this status comes into being. He begins to answer this question by considering our notion and desire to pinpoint one moment in time at which fertilization occurs. Green sees such a notion as misconstrued...