# Defending Life ![rw-book-cover](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5113l+fF3JL._SY160.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[Francis J. Beckwith]] - Full Title: Defending Life - Category: #books ## Highlights - After all, if Christopher Reeve was identical to his embryonic self, then we were no more justified in killing an embryo to acquire its stem cells so that Mr. Reeve might walk again than we would be in stealing Mr. Reeve’s eyes so that Stevie Wonder might see again. ([Location 147](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=147)) - The pro-life position I defend in this book can be outlined by the following argument: The unborn entity, from the moment of conception, is a full-fledged member of the human community. It is prima facie morally wrong to kill any member of that community. Every successful abortion kills an unborn entity, a full-fledged member of the human community. Therefore, every successful abortion is prima facie morally wrong.1 ([Location 149](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=149)) - when I say that the unborn entity is a full-fledged member of the human community (or fully human for short) I mean to say that she is just as much a bearer of rights as any human being whose rights-bearing status is uncontroversial, for example, her mother, you, or me. ([Location 157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=157)) - this does not mean that it is always wrong in every circumstance to kill someone who is fully human. There could be circumstances in which killing is justified, such as in cases of self-defense or just war. ([Location 166](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=166)) - I do not argue for the pro-life position by appealing to theological reasoning or the authoritative writings of any particular religious tradition. The main thrust of this book is philosophical and jurisprudential. Hence, if my arguments are sound, an atheist, agnostic, or humanist is intellectually obligated to become pro-life. ([Location 203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=203)) - At the end of the day, the abortion debate is about who and what we are and whether we can know it. The cultural conflict over the permissibility of abortion is really a dispute over whether we are justified in extending our nation’s moral progress toward the elimination of unjust discrimination to include those who are the most vulnerable in the human family, the unborn. ([Location 221](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=221)) - “Don’t like abortion, don’t have one,” ([Location 230](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=230)) - This assertion, though common, reveals not only a deep misunderstanding about the nature of the abortion debate but also a confusion about what it means to say that something is morally wrong. ([Location 231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=231)) - The culprit, I believe, is moral relativism: the view that when it comes to questions of morality, there is no absolute or objective right and wrong; moral rules are merely personal preferences and/or the result of one’s cultural, sexual, or ethnic orientation. ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=233)) - Many people see relativism as necessary for promoting tolerance, nonjudgmentalism, and inclusiveness, for they think if one believes one’s moral position is correct and others’ incorrect, one is close-minded and intolerant. ([Location 237](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=237)) - I argue that both pro-life and abortion-choice advocates hold a number of moral principles in common, and that the difference between these two contrary points of view does not rest on inconsistent moral principles but on disagreements about the application of these principles and the truth of certain “facts.” ([Location 247](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=247)) - Some people often confuse preference-claims with moral-claims or reduce the latter to the former. To understand what I mean by this, consider two statements:3 I like vanilla ice cream. Killing people without justification is wrong. ([Location 253](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=253)) - “Don’t like abortion, then don’t have one.” This instruction reduces the abortion debate to a preference-claim. ([Location 268](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=268)) - when the pro-lifer hears the abortion-choice advocate tell her that if she doesn’t like abortion she doesn’t have to have one, it sounds to her as if the abortion-choicer is saying, “Don’t like murder, then don’t kill any innocent persons.” ([Location 273](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=273)) - There are two arguments that are often used to defend moral relativism. The first is the argument from cultural and individual differences and the second is the argument from tolerance. ([Location 283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=283)) - The fact that people disagree about something does not mean that there is no truth of the matter. ([Location 292](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=292)) - Even if individuals and cultures hold no values in common, it does not follow from this that nobody is right or wrong about what is moral truth. ([Location 295](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=295)) - In the end, moral disagreement proves nothing. ([Location 300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=300)) - according to the relativist’s own principle – disagreement means there is no truth – he ought to abandon his opinion that relativism is the correct position. ([Location 305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=305)) - As Arkes points out, “My disagreement establishes that the proposition [i.e., disagreement means there is no truth] does not enjoy a universal assent, and by the very terms of the proposition, that should be quite sufficient to determine its own invalidity.”7 ([Location 307](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=307)) - Consider again the issue of abortion. The conventional wisdom is that the moral and legal debate over abortion is a dispute between two factions that hold incommensurable value systems. But the conventional wisdom is mistaken, for these factions hold many moral principles in common. First, each side believes that all humans possess certain rights regardless of whether their governments protect these rights. That is why both sides appeal to what each believes is a fundamental right. The pro-life advocate appeals to “life” whereas the abortion-choice advocate appeals to “liberty” (or “choice”). Both believe that a constitutional regime, to be just, must uphold fundamental rights. ([Location 326](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=326)) - Second, each side believes that its position best exemplifies its opponent’s fundamental value. The abortion-choice advocate does not deny that “life” is a value, but argues that his ([Location 331](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=331)) - position’s appeal to human liberty is a necessary ingredient by which an individual can pursue the fullest and most complete life possible. ([Location 332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=332)) - On the other hand, the pro-life advocate does not eschew “liberty.” She believes that all human liberty is at least limited by another human person’s right to life. ([Location 333](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=333)) - The cultural relativist’s position is self-refuting. What does it mean for a position to be self-refuting? J. P. Moreland explains: When a statement fails to satisfy itself ([Location 366](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=366)) - (i.e., to conform to its own criteria of validity or acceptability), it is self-refuting. . . . ([Location 367](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=367)) - The claim “there are no truths” is self-refuting. If it is false, then it is false. But if it is true, then it is false as well, for in that case there would be no truths, including the statement itself.12 ([Location 369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=369)) - How is cultural relativism self-refuting? The supporter of cultural relativism maintains that there are no objective and universal moral norms and for that reason everyone ought follow the moral norms of his or her own culture. But the cultural relativist is making an absolute and universal moral claim, namely, that everyone is morally obligated to follow the moral norms of his or her own culture. So, if this moral norm is absolute and universal, then cultural relativism is false. But if this moral norm is neither absolute nor universal, then cultural relativism is still false, for in that case I would not have a moral obligation to follow the moral norms of my culture. ([Location 372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=372)) - 2. Because each of us belongs to a number of different “societies” or “cultures,” which one of them should be followed when they conflict? ([Location 377](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=377)) - 3. There can be no moral progress or moral reformers. If morality is reducible to culture, then there can be no real moral progress. For the only way one can say that a culture is getting better, or progressing, is if there are objective moral norms that are not dependent on culture to which a society may draw closer. But if what is morally good is merely what one’s culture says is morally good, then we can only say that cultural norms change, not that the society is progressing or getting better. Yet, it seems, for example, that the abolition of slavery and the establishment of civil rights of African Americans in the United States were instances of moral progress. ([Location 384](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=384)) - For the Court to make its argument valid, it would have to add to its factual premise the normative premise: whenever a human being cannot live on its own because it uniquely depends on another human being for its physical existence, it is permissible for the second human being to kill the first to rid the second of this burden. ([Location 997](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=997)) - Given the gravity of a woman’s choice to abort – as all parties in this dispute concede – we have an obligation to become conversant with these matters, troubling though they are. ([Location 1609](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1609)) - Pregnancy begins at conception, the successful result of the process of fertilization at which the male sperm and the female ovum unite. ([Location 1621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1621)) - And what results is an entity called a zygote. It is a misnomer to refer to this entity as a “fertilized ovum.” For both ovum and sperm, which are genetically parts of their owners (mother and father, respectively), cease to exist at least at the moment of conception and perhaps earlier in the fertilization process. For that reason, it may not even be correct to refer to the sperm and egg as “uniting,” for, as philosopher Robert Joyce points out, “that suggests that they remain and form a larger whole.” But that is not accurate, for they are not like machine parts cobbled together to form something larger though remaining identifiable parts. Rather, “the nuclei of the sperm and ovum dynamically interact,” and “in so doing, they both cease to be. One might say they die together.” ([Location 1624](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1624)) - The pre-syngamy pronuclei standard is less problematic as at that time sperm and ovum have ceased to exist as distinct entities and the oocyte, though not possessing the diploid set of chromosomes of the zygote and embryo, seems to behave like an individual living organism with an intrinsically directed nature. ([Location 1635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1635)) - It may be that one cannot, with confidence, pick out the precise point at which a new being comes into existence between the time at which the sperm initially penetrates the ovum and a complete and living zygote is present. ([Location 1645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1645)) - It seems to me that Boonin commits the fallacy of the beard: just because I cannot tell you when stubble ends and a beard begins does not mean that I cannot distinguish bearded faces from clean-shaven ones. After all, abortion-choice supporters typically pick out what they consider value-making properties – for example, rationality, having a self-concept, sentience, or organized cortical brain activity (as in the case of Boonin) – that they justify concluding that a being lacking one or all of them does not have a right to life. ([Location 1647](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1647)) - Resulting from the dynamic interaction, and organic merger, of the female ovum (which contains 23 chromosomes) and the male sperm (which contains 23 chromosomes), the conceptus is a new, although tiny, individual with a human genetic code with its own genomic sequence (with 46 chromosomes),8 which is neither her mother’s nor her father’s.9 From this point until death no new genetic information is needed to make the unborn entity an individual human being. ([Location 1654](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1654)) - The conceptus, from the very beginning, is a whole organism, with certain capacities, powers, and properties, whose parts work in concert to bring the whole to maturity. ([Location 1663](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1663)) - The only thing necessary for its growth and development, as with the rest of us, is oxygen, food, water, and healthy interaction with its natural environment, because this organism, like the newborn, the infant, and the adolescent, needs only to develop in accordance with her given nature that is present at conception. ([Location 1665](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1665)) - Dr. Hymie Gordon, professor of medical genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic: I think we can now also say that the question of the beginning of life – when life begins – is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception. . . . ([Location 1672](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1672)) - The U.S. Senate Subcommittee, which cited four of the above authorities in its report, made the observation that “no witness [who testified before the subcommittee] raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species. No witness challenged the scientific consensus that unborn children are ‘human beings,’ insofar as the term is used to mean living beings of the human species.” ([Location 1695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1695)) - So from a strictly scientific point of view, it seems reasonable to believe that the development of an individual human life begins at conception. Consequently, each human being begins her physical existence as a zygote and that organism does not acquire its humanness at some later stage in its development. The human organism remains a human being throughout her life, from zygote to embryo to fetus to newborn to adolescent and throughout adulthood until natural death at which the existence of the living organism ends. None of these stages imparts to the human being her humanity. ([Location 1705](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1705)) - Because the conceptus can be brought into existence in a petri dish, as evidenced in the case of the so-called test-tube baby, and since this entity, if it has white parents, can be transferred to the womb of a black woman and be born white, we know conclusively that the conceptus is not part of the woman’s body. Of course, the conceptus attaches to the woman’s body and draws sustenance from her, and in that sense it is physically engaged with the mother’s body. But it is still a separate being that is not her mother. ([Location 1709](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1709)) - As Dr. Gordon writes, “Even at that early stage, the complexity of the living cell is so great that it is beyond our comprehension. It is a privilege to be allowed to protect and nurture it.” ([Location 1724](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1724)) - Although tiny, the unborn by the beginning of the second month looks “distinctly human” (though it is human from conception), and yet it is highly likely that the mother does not even know she is pregnant. ([Location 1745](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1745)) - During the second month, the eyes, ears, nose, toes, and fingers make their appearance. Her skeleton develops, her heart beats, and her blood, with its own type, flows. ([Location 1748](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1748)) - By the end of the seventh week we see a well-proportioned small scale baby. [emphasis mine.] In its seventh week, it bears the familiar external features and all the internal organs of the adult, even though it is less than an inch long and weighs only 1/30th of an ounce.”25 ([Location 1750](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1750)) - “After the eighth week no further primordia will form; everything is already present that will be found in the full term baby. . . . From this point until adulthood, when full growth is achieved somewhere between 25 and 27 years, the changes in the body will be mainly in dimension and in gradual refinement of the working parts.”26 That is, at eight weeks post-conception all bodily systems are present in at least their rudimentary form. ([Location 1755](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1755)) - Growth is characteristic of the fourth month. The weight of the unborn expands sixfold by the end of the month, a time at which she is about eight to ten inches in height or 50% of what her height will be at birth. In the fifth month of pregnancy the unborn becomes viable. That is, she now has the ability, under our current technological knowledge, to live outside her mother’s womb. Some babies have survived as early as 20 weeks after conception. ([Location 1764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1764)) - Given the facts of embryology and fetal development, at conception, a whole human being, with its own genome, comes into existence, needing only food, water, shelter, and oxygen, and a congenial environment in which to interact, to grow and develop itself to maturity in accordance with her own intrinsically ordered nature. ([Location 1774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1774)) - Although it is widely acknowledged in the scientific literature that the individual human being begins at conception, there are some who have challenged this notion. Unlike the thinkers who maintain that the unborn is a human being from conception but does not become a person until sometime later (we will assess their arguments in Chapter 6), those whose arguments we evaluate in this section do not address the personhood question but rather offer reasons for denying that conception is the time at which an individual human being comes into existence. They believe that the human being comes into existence very early in pregnancy, but not at conception. We will look at five of those arguments. ([Location 1784](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1784)) - Objection 1: The unborn is not a human being until implantation because it is at that time that it establishes its presence by transmitting hormonal signals to its mother. ([Location 1789](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1789)) - This argument is flawed for at least two reasons. First, it seems wrong to say that whether one is a human being by nature is dependent on whether others are aware of one’s existence. It seems correct to say that it is not essential to your existence as a human being whether anyone knows you exist, for you are who you are regardless of whether others are aware of your existence. ([Location 1796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1796)) - In philosophical terms, Nathanson confuses epistemology (the study of how we know things) with ontology (the study of being or existence). ([Location 1800](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1800)) - A second objection is, ironically, mentioned by Nathanson himself. He writes, “If implantation is biologically the decisive point for alpha’s [the unborn’s] existence, what do we do about the ‘test-tube’ conceptions? The zygote in these cases is seen in its culture dish and could be said to announce its existence even before it is implanted?” ([Location 1801](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1801)) - In sum, it seems counterintuitive to assert that one’s nature is dependent on another’s knowledge of one’s existence. ([Location 1811](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1811)) - Objection 2: Some products of conception are not human beings and some human beings may not result from conception. ([Location 1813](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1813)) - The problem with Nathanson’s argument is that it confuses necessary and sufficient conditions. ([Location 1823](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1823)) - Hence, the sperm-egg union is a necessary condition for conception, but not a sufficient condition. ([Location 1826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1826)) - Objection 3: Because so many pregnancies result in miscarriages or spontaneous abortions, it is difficult to believe the unborn are complete human beings during their entire gestation. ([Location 1833](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1833)) - it does not logically follow from the number of unborn entities who die that these entities are by nature not human beings who have begun their existence. ([Location 1842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1842)) - Consequently, just as difficult questions about withholding and withdrawing treatment from dying patients do not count against our prohibition against killing innocent healthy adults, the question of how we should ethically respond to spontaneous abortions does not count against the pro-life position that it is morally wrong to directly and intentionally kill the healthy and normally developing unborn. ([Location 1875](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1875)) - Objection 4: Because the early embryo has the potential to twin and recombine and possesses cellular totipotency, it is not an individual human being ([Location 1879](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1879)) - Objection 5: The zygote relies on maternal molecules to initially direct its development. ([Location 1981](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=1981)) - abortion is prima facie unjustified homicide if and only if the unborn entity is a full-fledged member of the human community (i.e., a person or a subject of moral rights). ([Location 2976](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=2976)) - These abortion advocates argue that the unborn entity is not a person and hence not a subject of moral rights until some decisive moment in fetal or postnatal development. ([Location 2979](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=2979)) - This chapter will focus almost exclusively on the arguments of the AEAs who maintain that intrinsic value is an accidental property, like height, weight, or skin pigmentation, all of which could change while the being undergoing the change remains the same being. ([Location 2999](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=2999)) - As already noted, proponents of this view do not deny that one’s adult self and one’s fetal self are one and the same being. Rather, they argue that your fetal self was not intrinsically valuable because it had not yet acquired the property or properties that make it an ([Location 3001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3001)) - intrinsically valuable human being (or IVHB). ([Location 3003](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3003)) - In other words, intrinsic value is an accidental, but not an essential, property of the human being. ([Location 3006](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3006)) - According to the substance view, a human being is intrinsically valuable because of the sort of thing it is and the human being remains that sort of thing as long as it exists. ([Location 3015](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3015)) - A substance is an individual being of a certain sort. So, for example, the substance George W. Bush is a human substance, a being with a particular nature that we call “human.” The substance Lassie too is an individual being, but she is a canine substance, a being with a particular nature that we call “canine.” ([Location 3018](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3018)) - W. Norris Clarke offers a four-part definition of what constitutes a human substance: ([Location 3021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3021)) - (1) it has the aptitude to exist in itself and not as a part of any other being; ([Location 3022](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3022)) - (2) it is the unifying center of all the various attributes and properties that belong to it at any one moment; ([Location 3023](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3023)) - (3) if the being persists as the same individual throughout a process of change, it is the substance which is the abiding, unifying center of the being across time; ([Location 3023](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3023)) - (4) it has an intrinsic dynamic orientation toward self-expressive action, ([Location 3024](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3024)) - toward self-communication with others, as the crown of its perfection, as its very raison d’etre. ([Location 3025](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3025)) - Another way to put it is to say that organisms, including human beings, are ontologically prior to their parts,5 which means that the organism as a whole maintains absolute identity through time while it grows, develops, and undergoes numerous changes, largely as a result of the organism’s nature that directs and informs these changes and their limits. ([Location 3044](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3044)) - Organisms, however, are different, for they may lose and gain parts, and yet remain the same thing over time. ([Location 3055](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=3055)) - Nevertheless, the answer to the philosophical question lurking behind abortion – Who and what are we? – turns out to be the key that unlocks the ethical quandaries posed by these other issues. ([Location 4477](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4477)) - After all, if human persons ought not to be subjects of research or killed without justification, and if the unborn from conception is a full-fledged member of the human community, abortion as well as other procedures, such as certain forms of cloning and embryo manipulation, are prima facie morally wrong. ([Location 4478](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4478)) - The main ethical concern for the panel was the moral permissibility of creating human embryos for the sole purpose of experimenting on them. ([Location 4485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4485)) - the panel concluded in its final report that some research was acceptable ([Location 4486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4486)) - “Technically, the word ‘clone,’ in its most simple and strict sense, refers to ([Location 4515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4515)) - a precise genetic copy of a molecule, cell, plant, animal, or human being.” ([Location 4516](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4516)) - The idea of cloning entire organisms can be traced back to a 1938 book by Hans Spemann, an ([Location 4525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4525)) - “in vitro fertilization,” or IVF: in a laboratory, they produced human embryos in a petri dish by taking ova and fertilizing them with male sperm. ([Location 4544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4544)) - In its June 9, 1997, report, the commission concluded that “it is morally unacceptable for anyone in the public or private sector, whether in research or clinical setting, to attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning.” ([Location 4588](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ARF2KEW&location=4588))