Human Dignity and Bioethics

346 | Susan M. Shell
of advancing medical research—would seem to pass Kantian muster.
Sale (rather than donation) of one’s eggs appears more doubtful.
On the second and potentially more difficult question of the
moral standing of the embryo: Kant’s pragmatically informed moral
teleology suggests a punctuated account of human development that
avoids the extremes of granting the embryo full human status on the
one hand, and no moral status whatsoever on the other. To be sure,
the reflections that follow are highly speculative. Kant never commented
directly on the moral status of the fetus or unborn child,
though some of his remarks suggest that even newborns in his view
may have lacked full moral standing. 22
The traditional “natural law” position afforded complete human
status to the fetus only with “quickening,” taken for a sign of self-motion
and hence “ensoulment.” Modern embryology, it is sometimes
claimed, shows that development is, in fact, continuous. Hence,
the fetus must have either full human status from the moment of
conception or none at all. But modern science also shows that the
embryo in its earliest stages retains a certain plasticity of form. For
the first ten days or so after conception the blastocyst may divide,
becoming twins. Such a process is unusual but not abnormal in the
sense of indicating the presence of some pathological factor or other
defect. The embryo, at this early stage, is not yet a fully individuated
human being. It does not yet have a unifying principle of development,
a distinct soul (to speak in traditional terms) that is wholly its
own. Pragmatically speaking, the moment at which such division is
no longer possible thus represents the beginning of a new and qualitatively
different stage in human development.
The punctuated character of early fetal development opens a window
for potential uses of the fetus that might be juridically or ethically
precluded at later stages. Embryonic stem cell research would
seem to be one obvious candidate. One might still, for religious reasons,
regard the blastocyst as fully human. But it becomes harder to
make the case either on strictly philosophic grounds or on grounds
of ordinary common sense.
What, then, of the limits that might apply to such uses? The
blastocyst is (or must be viewed by us as) purposively directed toward
fuller human development. It is not a mere “collection of cells” that