Possibility For Fetal Tissue Research example essay topic

Fetal tissue research is the process of using fetal tissue, derived from legal abortions, for scientific research into fundamental biological processes and human development. In addition, transplantation research uses fetal tissue to study potential treatment of life treating diseases. Recent legislation attempting to allow federal funding for stem cell research, a form of fetal tissue research, has caused this subject to be drawn into debate. Fetal tissue research often is morally and ethically controversial in that it is confused with the issues of abortion. Many people try to justify their position on fetal tissue research by proving or disproving the humanity of the fetus; however, in this paper I plan to give the fetus the benefit of the doubt by giving it the status of a full-fledged person.

This allows for the elimination of any issues associated with the morality of the abortion and allows for the separation from the equivocal points involved in the abortion debate. I also intend to only deal with the problems affiliated with consciously aborted fetuses. This is due to the fact that, generally, researchers deal less with spontaneously aborted fetuses and stillbirth fetuses because they are often associated with genetic defects. I intend to argue that fetal tissue research is a morally legitimate standpoint. By accepting the assumption that fetuses are persons then abortion would be a form of murder. If killing innocent persons is murder and fetuses, according to the assumption, are persons; then killing fetuses is murder.

Hence, it must follow that in order for research on aborted fetal tissue to be proven as morally admissible; then research on murdered person's tissue must also be proven admissible. The following is a situation where research on murdered person' tissue is comparable to that on aborted fetal tissue: Suppose that twenty-five year old persons (verses fetuses) were found to possess cells that the scientific community believed might have a beneficial effect on humanity. While trying to study these cells the scientists came across a problem. They found themselves unable to perform research on the individuals because the tests that they needed to perform in their research caused an instant death to its subjects. Nonetheless, they found themselves able to perform the tests on persons that were previously dead. They started a program where they attained murdered bodies of twenty-five year olds that have gone unclaimed in order to perform research on them.

In our society would the scientists' program be morally sound The answer lies in the rights of the person who has been murdered. If the murdered persons were to maintain any rights (e.g. life, liberty and the pursuit of land) then the scientists' rights to research would be out weighed (lest the individual allowed the research). What rights can murdered persons (i.e. aborted fetuses) have that would outweigh any scientific claims to their bodies The one right that is possibly entitled to deceased people is the right to funerary service. Throughout time the principle pertaining to the preservation of funeral rights has become quasi-archetypal for modern culture.

Some cultures, such as ancient Greeks, have even gone as far as to claim that these rights should be held higher than that of life itself. If this were the case, then a deceased persons right to a funeral would outweighs any scientific claim associated with the research of his / her body. This would cause the scientists to not be morally justified in the creation of their program above. In reality, murdered, lifeless individuals do not possess the right to a funeral. They, in actuality, do not possess any rights at all. The reason for this is as follows: in order to have rights you must also have the will to execute those rights. e.g. in order to have the right to bear firearms you must be able to choose whether or not you are going to bear arms.

Inanimate objects such as aborted fetal tissue are not able to have rights. Take a painting, an obvious in animate object, for example. Does it have a right to any thing connected with it Throughout the greater part of western civilization paintings have been given frames. This fact may lead you to believe that paintings do have the right to a frame.

On the contrary, a painting, in order to possess any right, must be able to behave in accordance with its choices or wills. They must be able to choose a frame according to their desire in order to maintain the right to a frame. In other words a painting must contain a Freedom of Voluntariness in order to retain a right to a frame; however it is absurd that any inanimate object possess this freedom, as it is a right held only by persons. It would follow that a dead person, someone who is void of all criteria pertaining to person-hood, also would not possess this freedom and, therefore, would not be able to hold rights. Going to an art gallery, it seems to be absurd that all of the paintings have elaborate frames.

Who or what, then, maintains the will and then the right to be able to endow artwork with intricate frames The obvious answer would be the owners. They have the freedom to act in accordance with a choice to frame the pictures. If it is the owners who have the right to frame a picture then who has the right to a funeral Similar to the case with artwork, it would be the owners, but defining the owner of a once living individual is slightly more difficult than defining the owner of a piece of art. Artwork has artists that created it and buyers who retain a definite monetary claim to it; corpses do not.

They do, however, have family and associates (i.e. parents who conceived them and acquaintances who influenced them). The family and associates would, in fact, own the post-person because they were at some level responsible for its existence. It follows that because of this ownership they also possess all rights associated with its body and what happens to it. Through abortion all claims to the fetus are dropped.

A fetus is a person without associates. The only people responsible for its existence are its parents. If the parents decide to get an abortion they would, initially, be in ownership of the fetus's body and thus posses all rights associated with it. Nonetheless, by going through with the abortion they have executed the right to discard the body and have given up all claims of ownership and, consequently, all of the body's future rights.

Furthermore, the ownership would not be passed on to the third party performing the abortion because the abortion is not involved with giving possession to the abortion clinic but to remove it from the parents. The fetal tissue would be without any claim of ownership. All parties, including the third party performing the abortion, desiring to acquire fetal tissue would contain an equal right to it. The situation would be analogous to someone disposing of a large sum of money by throwing it onto the floor of a busy airport. All people in the vicinity with a desire to have the money would have an equal right to it. The first people to acquire it, then, would be in correct possession of it.

Accordingly, the first persons to acquire the fetal tissue (generally the persons performing the abortion) would be in correct possession of it and have the right to control what happens to it. The possibility for fetal tissue research to be advantageous to humanity gives researchers not only an equal right to discarded fetuses but, in fact, precedence to them. The mere speculation that research on dead fetuses could give insights into birth defects and other diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's creates a small possibly that humanity will be improved. That small possibility would outweigh any other claim to the tissue. The only reason that party performing the abortion does often end up in possession of fetal tissue is because they were merely the firsts to acquire it out of the mother's care. However, Because fetal tissue researchers have a superior claim to the tissue it ought to be the case where they are in instant ownership of it.

Researchers are, therefore, morally justified in fetal tissue research. The fetus possesses no rights, and any person searching for beneficial effects derived from the fetal tissue would have priority over other claims. In ownership of the fetal tissue, a researcher would be morally appropriate in perform research on it because they are executing their will. One of the most noteworthy reasons to stop fetal tissue research is the possibility of the creation of a cash market for fetal tissue and organs. The reasoning behind this is that because there is such a high demand for fetal tissue people would be willing to pay large amounts of money in order to attain it. This, in some cases, may promote abortion, which is a form of murder, as mean for gaining money.

Fetal tissue research would indirectly motivate murder and, thus, be partially responsible for it. Ideally the answer to this problem is that it is a fallacy to think that the persons selling the tissue ever have any monetary claim to it. In fact, the people representing the greater good in the scientific community would be in right possession of the tissue in the first place and therefore never have the need to but it. However, I am able to recognize that in our society this would never be the case.

Perhaps it is because we live in an economically driven society. The greater good would not be saving lives or gaining knowledge but to make money. This would render the ideal solution unfeasible because it would justify a monetary claim to fetal tissue. It would also destroy my positive case for fetal tissue research because the scientific community would no longer be representing the greater good. My only reply to this is that I would like to deal with prescriptive claims not descriptive claims. I would like to prove fetal tissue research morally legitimate in comparison to how our society ought to be not with how it really is.