Addressing the Potential for Human Life

I would like to know, was the Ryan article a direct response to Steinbock’s? It was obviously a response to a Steinbock article, but was it the article we read? If it was, I believe that the editor of this collection did us a disservice. Ryan directly addresses a point raised by Steinbock that was not in the Steinbock article. A point I believed was missing and weakened Steinbock’s argument.

Steinbock wrote, “Just as disrespect for dead bodies can strike at our respect for living human persons, so, too, I want to suggest, an inappropriate treatment or use of embryos. Embryos, as much as dead bodies, are a ‘potent symbol of human life’ and for that reason have moral value and deserve respect, even though they lack interests, rights, and (therefore) moral status.”

I took issue with Steinbock’s casual dismissal of embryos as mere symbols of human life, “as much as dead bodies.” Her use of the example is, understandably, to answer the paradox of embryos deserving special respect, yet holding no rights, and it provides a reasonable example of an instance where a thing may not have any moral status, yet still have moral value. It deserves respect, however has no rights.

And, yes, that is a wonderful example to illustrate her point that it is, indeed, possible to give special respect to a thing while (contradictorily) that same thing has no rights. However, Steinbock does not address an embryo’s potential for life.

While it is a useful example to prove that such conditions exist, her point only addresses the possibility of such conditions existing. While the conditions exist, do embryos fall into that category? She continues on to describe what giving respect to human embryos consists of and addresses concerns raised regarding the question of what should be done with embryos no longer needed or wanted for IVF, but assumes that it is a given that embryos have no rights, yet are due special respect without addressing an embryo's potential for life.

Then, while reading the Ryan article, Ryan provides Steinbock’s line of reasoning regarding an embryo’s potential for life. “Human embryos have the potential to develop into ‘the kind of being that will have interests,’ but, lacking conscious awareness, embryos and even presentient fetuses lack interests of their own; that is, they exist – at this stage – as the sort of being ‘to whom nothing at all can possibly matter . . .’” The argument continues to conclude that sentience is the necessary condition for moral standing.

Ryan’s direct and impressive criticism of this logic verbalized the issues I took with Steinbock’s dismissal of the potential of life (and many more than I briefly considered). But does Steinbock address the argument that potential persons are more than just symbols? Was it simply not quoted, and, if so, is there more to that argument than that briefly quoted by Ryan?

As one last aside, Ryan exhaustively addressed her moral argument differentiating between embryos created for scientific research and those for reproductive intentions, but I think she asks a basic question that I believe deserves more consideration from a different angle. “What are we doing when we fertilize in vitro . . .”? Which made me wonder, do all people have a right to reproduce? Is it a right?

That question has more to do with reproductive freedom we addressed last week. I guess I’m still debating whether or not it is a right, and if it is, why? Why does every human have a right to reproduce?