Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
83 
have expressed this view, to varying degrees. The Ethics Ad- 
visory Board to the Department of Health, Education and Wel- 
fare concluded in 1979 that the early human embryo deserves 
"profound respect" as a form of developing human life (though 
not necessarily "the full legal and moral rights attributed to 
persons The NIH Human Embryo Research Panel agreed 
in 1994 that "the preimplantation hiaman embryo warrants se- 
rious moral consideration as a developing form of human life," 
though the panel argued that this did not mean that research 
should be prohibited. In 1999, the National Bioethics Advi- 
sory Commission (NBAC) cited broad agreement in society 
that "human embryos deserve respect as a form of human 
life,"^^° but, like its predecessors, did not recognize the embryo 
as having the full rights of a human person. The special re- 
spect position has been held by its advocates to be consistent 
with a range of possible particular policies on embryo re- 
search, including fairly restrictive ones, and indeed could be 
held consistent even "with an outright restriction on the de- 
struction of human embryos.*^^^ To consider the embryo ‘invio- 
lable’ (and therefore not a mere utility to be instrument ally 
used), it is not necessary to presuppose its moral equality with 
a child, an adult or even a later stage gestating fetus. There 
may be increasing moral obligations (and natural sentiments) 
associated vvhth a deepening relationality that extend moral 
duty without in any way implicitly eroding an imperative of 
protection at earlier stages of developing life. Most of those 
who have articulated the special respect position in the public 
debate have, however, tended to then argue that some re- 
search on embryos should be permitted within certain bounda- 
ries, even if they have not always agreed on the permissible 
extent or the appropriate boundaries. 
B. Special Cases and Exceptions 
Some arguments in favor of permitting and funding embryo 
research, grounded in the "special respect" approach, do not 
in fact explicitly (or exclusively) rely on arguments about dis- 
* This is partly due to the fact that "special respect," and "intermediate moral 
status," are rather vague terms, and embrace a very wide range of degrees 
of "specialness" and “intermediacy." 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
