Final Report (all chapters)

esearch. On the other end are situated research protocols that involve the use and manipulation
of human reproductive tissues but focus on medical research more broadly. Stem cell research
provides an illustration; it depends on the availability of human embryos but is largely unrelated
to questions pertaining to the study of infertility, though advances may come about as an
unanticipated benefit.
This ambiguity cannot easily be eliminated. Both areas of research touch upon the beginning
of human life, and both types of research make use of human reproductive tissues. In addition,
there is a considerable amount of organizational and institutional overlapping; many scientists
involved in one kind of research are also involved in the other. Both kinds of research often are
conducted at the same research organization. And, as we show below, experimentation in these
two areas of research raise significant ethical concerns. For all these reasons, we decided not to
distinguish explicitly between medical research involving the use of reproductive tissues and
ART research proper.
Research protocols in this area raise a fairly unique set of ethical questions. By its nature,
research on reproductive tissues is very unlikely to have an immediate impact on children and/or
their parents. It is also not very likely to affect the practice of medicine, at least in the short term,
nor does it undermine important societal values. In this sense, the immediate, short-term risks
associated with these research activities are relatively modest. The destruction of human
embryos for research purposes of course remains a very contentious and problematic proposition.
It is certainly an important (if not the most important) ethical concern raised by biomedical
research involving reproductive tissues. On the other hand, excessive attention to research
involving human embryos tends to ignore other important research developments. These research
protocols are problematic not because of immediate ethical concerns, but for difficult ethical
dilemmas they are likely to produce in the not-too-distant future.
Before discussing actual cases of problematic scientific protocols, we need to respond to an
important criticism. Science advocates insist that regulatory interventions should be explored
only in the presence of immediate and clear harm. In this view, harmful effects that have yet to
manifest themselves do not justify government interventions. 60 The concept of the slippery slope,
a metaphorical term used to identify a technological trajectory associated with undesirable
societal consequences, has been described by these critics simply as a rhetorical device invoked
by technology skeptics unable to muster specific reasons for opposing a scientific or
technological development.
We submit that this argument is itself the manifestation of an unreconstructed faith in
another kind of slope – the virtuous slope. If we apply the critics’ reasoning to a potentially
beneficial line of research, we may say that as long as the research has not produced any useful
results, there is simply no reason to assume that these results will materialize. Therefore, there is
no prima facie reason to shield research activities from governmental interventions. Rejecting
60
John A. Robertson, "Two Models of Human Cloning," Hofstra Law Review 27 (1999); Eugene Volokh, "The
Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope," Harvard Law Review 116 (2003).
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