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home > by publication type > op-eds > A Delicate Balance
| Author: | Michael J. Gerson, Roger Hertog Senior Fellow |
|---|
September 4, 2006
Newsweek
The issue of stem cells was the first test of the infant Bush administration, pitting the promise of medical discovery against the protection of developing life and prompting the president’s first speech to the nation. His solution—funding research on existing stem-cell lines, but not the destruction of embryos to create new ones—was seen as a smart political compromise. In fact, the president was drawing a bright ethical line. He argued that no human life should be risked or destroyed for the medical benefit of another. This was an intentional rejection of the chilly creed of utilitarianism—the greatest good for the greatest number—because the greatest number would gain the unrestricted right to extend their lives by ending or exploiting the lives of the weak.
Now the suggestion that science may be able to extract usable stem cells from early embryos without destroying them offers a technological answer to this ethical puzzle, and exposes some tensions within the pro-life movement.
In the reported experiment, every embryo was killed to extract their stem cells, a fact not likely to encourage enthusiasm in the pro-life community. But the growth of viable stem-cell lines from very early cells raises the prospect that these cells could be collected in more ethical ways, through existing fertility technologies that test for disease without ending a life. This method, as it stands, is still questionable, but it is testable.
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In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.
Complete list of CFR Books.
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This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
About Independent Task Forces at the Council.
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