On Waving the Embryos Banner: Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Moral Reasoning in Recent Reports from the USA, the Netherlands and France

This chapter discusses the argumentative strategies in reports from the Netherlands and France, both recommending a larger scope for embryonic stem cell research. It presents the four proposals discussed by the President's Council in its quest for sources of pluripotent stem cells that would be compatible with giving full protection to human embryos. The proposals are include direct reprogramming, the human embryo as 'living stem cell donor', the human embryo as 'post-mortem stem cell donor' and altered nuclear transfer. In pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, blastomere biopsy is performed in order to allow genetic testing for a disease the parents would not want to transmit to their children. As a large percentage of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) embryos are non-viable as a result of chromosomal abnormalities, this would indeed seem to constitute a serious gap. The In Vitro Maturation (IVM) seems feasible only with fully grown oocytes. The Dutch and French reports both stress the importance of these attempts at finding alternative sources of oocytes.