James F. Childress is a faculty member of the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics in the School of Medicine of the University of Virginia. Previously, he was Professor of Ethics, Religious Studies, Public Policy, and Research in Medical Education.
Professor James F. Childress
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After receiving his PhD from Yale University, James F. Childress joined the faculty of the University of Virginia, where he was later the founding director of the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life. He also held a chair in ethics for several years at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerous articles and several books in various areas of ethics. Together with Tom Beauchamp, Childress developed the “Four Principle Model” of medical ethics, in which the principles of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice are applied in weighing for or against specific medical treatments.
Childress was a member of the presidentially-appointed National Bioethics Advisory Commission, 1996-2001, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has received numerous fellowships, prizes, and awards, including the University of Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities.
Further information: James F. Childress - Center for Health Humanities & Ethics (virginia.edu)
Human Embryo Research: Debating Ethical Principles and Moral Status
This presentation aims to facilitate public discourse by examining ethical arguments for and against medical research on and with early human embryos and their derivatives. It analyzes key issues through the lens of common bioethical principles. The “four-principles” framework highlights (1) beneficence, i.e., producing benefits, such as increasing medical knowledge and developing effective therapies through research, and (2) nonmaleficence, i.e., avoiding the infliction of harm. Many of our activities generate harms along with benefits, and, as a result, an ethical balancing of probable benefits and probable harms is necessary to produce a net benefit, as required by the principle of beneficence.
Efforts to determine harms in human embryo research encounter debates about the moral status of the early human embryo—is it mere tissue, potential human life, or full human life (person)? Is the embryo’s moral status static or does this develop gradually over time? Given the stage of embryo development largely under consideration (earlier than 14 days, before development of the primitive streak and individuation), there are debates about harms that research might cause, including destruction, indignity, and disrespect. And there are debates about whether respect and dignity for the human embryo are compatible with actions that destroy the embryo, as in the derivation of embryonic stem cells. Another emergent question is how we should view and treat human embryo-like structures, such as embryoids, developed from pluripotent stem cells.
It is also important to consider (3) justice and fairness in distributing benefits and harms, burdens, and costs. Sometimes a tension arises between fairness and moral distancing, for example, as when a society bans human embryo research while accepting the benefits of the knowledge or the stem cell lines generated through others’ research. In such a situation, the principle of fairness is often invoked to criticize moral “free riding.”
Another common principle is (4) respect for personal autonomy, which undergirds voluntary, informed choice. One current controversy concerns which options couples should have when, after IVF, they have too many embryos to use, now or in future, for their own reproductive purposes. Specifically, should they be able to donate their embryos for research instead of donating them to others for reproductive purposes or simply destroying them?
These are some of the issues this presentation examines in light of several ethical principles and conflicting views of the embryo’s moral status.
