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65 Alb. L. Rev. 597 (2001-2002)
Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Respect for Human Life: Philosophical and Legal Reflections

handle is hein.journals/albany65 and id is 619 raw text is: ESSAY EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH AND RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE: PHILOSOPHICAL AND LEGAL REFLECTIONS James J. McCartney, Ph.D.* I. INTRODUCTION Less than twenty-five years ago, bioethics was considered a somewhat arcane discipline. In 1978, the late Paul Ramsey, a noted Protestant ethicist, published a book entitled Ethics at the Edges of Life: Medical and Legal Intersections.1 In this book, Ramsey consi- dered abortion, euthanasia, defective infants, neonatal infanticide, and the refusal of life-prolonging technology.2 Although the book was well received in some specialized academic circles, it did not have much impact on the media or on the popular culture of that time. One possible reason for this is that many people would just as soon avoid discussing issues that concern life and death.' Twenty-two years have passed since the publication of Ramsey's book, and many of the issues that were discussed still linger, yet * James J. McCartney, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and former Chair of the Philosophy Department of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Villanova School of Law and an Associate at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. He also provides frequent local and national consultation in clinical and corporate ethics. For much of the material found in Part IV of this article, I wish to thank Christopher Kehrli of Villanova School of Law who wrote an excellent paper for my Bioethics and the Law class entitled Patent Law at the Frontier-Gene Patents and the New Age of Technology (unpublished paper, on file with the author). I am also indebted to Cary S. Kvitka, a law student at the Villanova University School of Law, for doing the preliminary research on the legal considerations of stem cell research. ' PAUL RAMSEY, ETHICS AT THE EDGES OF LIFE: MEDICAL AND LEGAL INTERSECTIONS (1978). 2 See id. at xii-xvii. ' See ERNEST BECKER, THE DENIAL OF DEATH (1973) for a persuasive account of how the fear of death pervades the modern psyche, and of the rituals of avoidance that contemporary cultures develop to keep death at bay.

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