Human Dignity and Bioethics

Dignity and Bioethics | 493
though it has human genes. As a different kind of thing, a mole does
not have intrinsic dignity. Therefore, the possibility of mole formation
is not an argument that a human embryo in the Petri dish does
not have intrinsic dignity. If what is in the dish is a human embryo,
then it has intrinsic dignity. If what is in the dish is a mole, then it
does not.
Interpreted as an epistemological argument, however, this line of
reasoning suggests that, because one might not be able to determine
until later in development whether what is growing in the uterus or
the Petri dish is a mole, one therefore cannot speak meaningfully of
the intrinsic dignity of a five-day old blastocyst. It is true that, in
vivo, given current technology, there is no good way to tell an embryo
from a mole at 5 days of developmental age. In vitro, by contrast, it
has been demonstrated that even at the 2-cell stage one can detect
characteristic abnormalities in hydatidiform moles. 40 However, prescinding
from the question of whether one has epistemic access to
the true (if modest) essence of the thing undergoing development,
as a practical matter this possibility does not seem morally decisive.
Moles are rare. If there is a 99.9% chance that what I see stirring in
the woods is a fellow hunter, and a 0.1% chance that it might be a
deer, prudence suggests not shooting. And any epistemic doubts I
might have about what stirs—in the woods, the womb, or the Petri
dish—do not suffice to change the ontological status of the thing
that stirs. There is a correct answer to the question, is this a mole or
an embryo? If what is in the dish is an individual member of the human
natural kind in the embryonic stage of development, then it has
intrinsic dignity. My uncertainty does not change the kind of thing
that it is, nor does my uncertainty change its intrinsic value.
A theory of dignity that can provide such explanations and guidance
in moral decision-making about the treatment of human embryos
would not seem useless.
Cloning to Bring Babies to Birth
All of the arguments I raised above about why it is a violation of
intrinsic human dignity to destroy already existing human embryos
for research purposes apply a fortiori to creating human embryos