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-- [ From: Seymour Gross * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- Marilyn Vos Savant writes a weekly column for Parade Magazine. She is listed in the "Guinness Book of World Records" Hall of Fame for "Highest IQ." The question was sent by Ron Petrarca, Washington, D.C. and it, along with her response appeared on August 24, 1997. Question: I'm planning a career in the biological sciences. Do you consider research on human embryos to be ethical? Response: This is a dilemma. I find experimentation on human embryos to be both ethically right and wrong, depending on which ethical system is used. From a standpoint of professional (in this case, scientific) ethics, such research appears to be perfectly acceptable. Human cadavers are routinely used in scientific research, and human embryos (that are already dead) don't seem different in an ethically significant way. Moreover, the end result could be overwhelmingly positive for humankind. But from a standpoint of personal (in this case, moral) ethics, a problem arises. Human embryos are clearly incapable of giving their consent the way human adults may simply donate their bodies to science if they wish. Does this incapacity entitle society to appropriate their cadavers? If so, we may argue that we should be able to appropriate all other human cadavers from people who were just as clearly incapable of giving their consent, such as people who had been living in a vegetative physical state or even people who merely had been mentally ill. One way out of this dilemma is through the consent of others. Just as the parents of a teenager who dies in a motorcycle accident can donate his organs, so could the parents of an embryo be able to donate it to benefit others someday. Another way out - for the individual scientist - is to ask himself or herself: "Does society strongly encourage all individuals to give the consent that would result in my ability to do this research?" If the answer is "yes," I think one's conscience can be clear. Dolores Gross [log in to unmask]