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Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
moving away from an individualistic liberal view of the pregnant 
woman as primarily or exclusively an autonomous moral agent might 
lead us to recognize the obligations that individuals and 
communities have to support her during and after a burdensome 
pregnancy (363). 
We do not need to accept Cahill’s commitment to the Catholic 
common good tradition to recognize the truth in her conclusion that 
pitting the rights of the fetus against the rights of the pregnant 
woman individualistically construed leads us to overlook important 
social dimensions of the problem of abortion. It seems to me that 
much the same dynamic is evident in the stem cell research debate. 
Consider again the central argument that the Catholic church 
has made against stem cell research. The Pontifical Academy for Life 
suggests that the fundamental ethical issue is whether it is morally 
licit to produce or use human embryos to derive embryonic stem 
cells. The reasoning the Academy provides for concluding it is not 
licit is worth reproducing in full. The Academy lists five points: 
1. On the basis of a complete biological analysis, the 
living human embryo isQfrom the moment of the 
union of the gametesQa human subject with a well 
defined identity, which from that point begins its 
own coordinated. continuous and gradual 
development , such that at no later stage can it be 
considered as a simple mass of cells. 
2. From this it follows that as a “ human individual ” it 
has the right to its own life; and therefore every 
intervention which is not in favor of the embryo is an 
act which violates that right. . . . 
3. Therefore, the ablation of the inner cell mass (ICM) 
of the blastocyst, which critically and irremediably 
damages the human embryo, curtailing its 
development, is a gravely immoral act and 
consequently is gravely illicit . 
4. No end believed to be good , such as the use of 
stem cells for the preparation of other differentiated 
cells to be used in what look to be promising 
therapeutic procedures, can justify an intervention of 
this kind . A good end does not make right an action 
which in itself is wrong. 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
