Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
81 
the previous stage and as leading to the subsequent stage, 
rather than marking a significant discontinuity.®® They 
maintain that the human being is, from the start, an insepa- 
rable psycho-physical unity, rather than a pure rationality or 
consciousness that exists with no meaningful ties to our 
bodies. From a scientific perspective, such critics hold, 
there is no meaningful moment when one can definitively 
designate the biological origins of a human characteristic 
such as consciousness, because our mind works in and 
through our body, and the roots of consciousness lie deep in 
our development. The earliest stages of human develop- 
ment serve as the indispensable and enduring foundations 
for the powers of freedom and self-awareness that reach 
their fullest expression in the adult form.^®° Some of those 
who believe that neural development is crucial, however, 
argue that the fact of non-sentience and of an inability to 
experience pain possess great moral significance, quite 
apart from the question of probable potential. 
(c) Human form: Some observers also argue that certain ru- 
dimentary features of the human form must be apparent be- 
fore we can consider a human embryo deserving of protec- 
tion. In this view, the human form truly signals the presence 
of a human life in the making and calls upon our moral sen- 
timents to treat the being in question as "one of us.”^°^ Dif- 
ferent versions of this argument appeal to different particu- 
lar elements (or combinations of elements) of the human 
form as decisive, but all suggest that a “ball of cells” is not 
recognizably human and therefore ought not to be treated 
as simply one of us.^°^ Some critics of this view argue that 
humans have different external forms or shapes throughout 
their lives, and that an organism, particularly in its early 
stages, should not be judged by its external shape, but 
rather by its biological constitution, and especially its ge- 
netic identity.^®® But adherents of the argument that human 
form matters contend that genetic identity cannot simply be 
decisive of moral worth. 
These various particular cases for discontinuity (and these 
are not the only ones that have been propounded over the 
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