How does your worldview of human value affect your beliefs about bioethical issues, such as abortion, designer babies, and stem cell research?

Initial discussion question posts should be a minimum of 200 words and include at least two references cited using APA format. Responses to peers or faculty should be 100-150 words and include one reference. Refer to the “Discussion Question Rubric” and “Participation Rubric,” located in Class Resources, to understand the expectations for initial discussion question posts and participation posts, respectively.

Expert Answer

Human value is the worldview that has a significant impact on the way individuals look at bioethical dilemmas like abortion, designer babies, and stem cell research. When human life is regarded as sacred since conception, all human existence phases are considered worthwhile. According to Clarke (2023), the sanctity of life principle views life as something precious and worthy, which should never be destroyed. Therefore, such reasons make many people unsupportive of abortion and embryo-destructive studies. This opinion implies that the act of developing embryos or destroying embryos due to science would violate human dignity.

Also, there is a remark by the Writing Group of the ESHRE Ethics Committee et al. (2024) that the definition of personhood is used to define whether or not embryos are given full moral status. Abortion and embryonic research would be morally wrong if embryos were seen as ethical creatures. Combined, these opinions encourage care and preservation of human life.

Other worldviews base a human value on autonomy, potential, or contributing to society, and this makes their views on bioethical issues more lenient. Clarke (2023) notes that secular views tend to strike a balance between the value of life and liberty and social progress. Akatsuka and colleagues (2023) discovered that Japanese specialists and the general population are in favor of genome editing in research, which has ethical protection, in a pragmatic sense of human value.

Further elaborated by the Writing Group of the ESHRE Ethics Committee et al. (2024), acknowledging the fact of various moral statuses of embryos is what can enable ethical biomedical advances to achieve better health outcomes. These views demonstrate that the worldview of sacredness, autonomy, or the good of a society influences the belief about abortion, designer babies, and stem cell research differently yet significantly.

References

Akatsuka, K., Hatta, T., Sawai, T., & Fujita, M. (2023). Genome editing of human embryos for research purposes: Japanese lay and expert attitudes. Frontiers in Genetics, 14, 1205067. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2023.1205067

Clarke S. (2023). The sanctity of life as a sacred value. Bioethics, 37(1), 32–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.13094

Writing Group of the ESHRE Ethics Committee, Pennings, G., Dondorp, W., Popovic, M., Chuva de Sousa Lopes, S., & Mertes, H. (2024). Ethical considerations on the moral status of the embryo and embryo-like structures†. Human reproduction (Oxford, England), 39(11), 2387–2391. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deae228