Let’s not ditch morals for scientific advancement
By Nola Leach, The Conservative Woman:
We live in a brave new world. Take the recent story all about the 14 day limit on keeping human embryos alive in a laboratory. Scientists have recently managed to grow human embryos and keep them alive for an unprecedented 13 days, right up to the legal limit. Cue the inevitable calls for the limit to be removed to allow for further experimentation. Story after story was filled with scientists and professors urging this ‘outdated’ legal limit be done away with. One bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania said: “I don’t see anything sacred in the 14 days.”
Scientific advances are pushing ethical boundaries left, right and centre. Yet increasingly it seems this new world has little time for moral and ethical arguments. This means the very sanctity of human life is under threat. The allure of being the first to pioneer a scientific first, or create a new cure is very powerful. Science provides many wonderful opportunities to understand our world and the human body better. But the growing pattern here in the UK is to breeze past ethical boundaries in pursuit of global acclaim. This attitude towards complex ethical debates is extremely dangerous. It is critical that amidst a flurry of ‘breakthroughs’, moral and ethical concerns are not simply swept under the carpet. The very nature of scientific advance must be chiefly informed by moral arguments to prevent us from going too far.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
