promoted by
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies
and
The Swiss Society of Bioethics
Showing that the human embryo is a person and distinguishing between a sick embryo and a pseudo-embryo
Recent techniques make it possible to
produce a number of biological entities, which exhibit the same early
development pattern as an embryo resulting through fertilization though
lack the capability for reaching birth. Would such entities in the case
of humans share the same moral status as the human embryo? Or are they
only pseudo-embryos, i.e., non-embryonic entities exhibiting only an
embryo-like development? These questions are crucial in the ongoing
bioethical debate.
The aim of this WEB site is to show that there is a scientific experimental basis as well for distinguishing between a human embryo and a non-embryonic biological artifact, as for determining that the human embryo is a person possessing human rights. The Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies and The Swiss Society of Bioethics promote the site.
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies is an international body of professors, researchers and students performing philosophical, ethical and interdisciplinary reflection on the recent advances of science. Especially the Institute aims to establish the observable criteria which allow to determine whether a body is a person or not, and thereby to contribute to a rational foundation of the human rights. The Institute is legally constituted inside the Fondation du Léman in Geneva.
The Swiss Society of Bioethics is an association according to the Swiss Civil Code Art. 60ff. which works especially to promote law in agreement with the principle that the human embryo is a person. We are convinced that the more one opposes this principle, the more the moral threshold for exploiting bodies goes down.
In this WEB site, you will find:
Basic general understandable presentations showing the experimental evidence and argumentation allowing us to distinguish between a human embryo and a pseudo-embryo, and conclude that the human embryo is a person.
A section with answers to the main objections against the personhood of the human embryo.
A list of scientific publications and preprints discussing more in depth the arguments and the experimental work displayed in the presentations, comments and correspondence.
A number of press releases and comments on public issues that are relevant for the status of the human embryo
A section correspondence including comments by interested readers, and eventual answers by the editors.
You can contribute to any section of this WEB site by sending us material you consider worth of being published in it. Our aim is to broadcast any new argument or experimental data strengthening the already welll-established evidence of the embryo’s personhood. In this sense we welcome especially anyone submitting smart objections or answers to them.
And you will efficiently contribute to enlarge the Culture of life by generous sponsoring of our WEB site.
Publications
22.3.2006
Is there a scientific
basis to distinguish the moral status of biological entities?
Press Release
10.4.2006
Comment on the
"Official web site of altered nuclear transfer (ANT)"
22.9.2005
On the moral
status of cells generated without genetic material from a male sperm
cell (parthenotes)
Presentation
18.6.2006
DIANA Genomic Anomalies.
Distinguishing between a
sick-embryo and a pseudo-embryo
en - pdf
html
18.6.2006
Inplantation is irrelevant for the
moral status of the embryo
en - pdf
html