3 
Recent Developments in 
the Ethical and Policy Debates 
The announcement of the Bush administration’s human 
embryonic stem cell research funding policy in the summer of 
2001 certainly did not end the debates surrounding the issue. 
The policy offered a particular target to which participants in 
the debate could react, but the basic questions involved in as- 
sessing how the federal government should approach embry- 
onic stem cell research remained just as relevant, and just as 
controversial, as they had been before. In this chapter, we offer 
an overview of that still continuing debate as it has developed 
in the past two years. Without attempting to provide anything 
like a full account of different positions and arguments, we 
hope, rather, to point to the major items under argument — ^to 
the issues that any interested citizen might wish to ponder. 
First, we will outline the general form of the moral argument 
as it has developed over time. Second, we will discuss specific 
questions and critiques regarding the current policy, as those 
have emerged in public discussion. Third, we will review the 
various positions on the moral standing of human embryos, 
seeking again to outline the chief fault lines in that continuing 
debate. And finally, we will highlight some critical ethical con- 
cerns that do not arise directly out of the debate over the moral 
standing of human embryos but which may be no less impor- 
tant to the larger question confronting the country. 
This array of subjects includes both some that are clearly 
ethical questions and some that may fall closer to questions of 
policy. We take up both together because we believe both are 
essential to a full understanding of the issues involved and be- 
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