Appendix G. 
247 
bom, followed by thousands of others in the ensuing 
decades. 
The ethics literature contains scholarly 
discussions as to whether it is ethically permissible 
to make use of medical advances that result from 
unethical research. This discussion sometimes 
focuses on medical research conducted by the Nazis 
in concentration camps and institutions for retarded, 
mentally ill, and handicapped persons. Yet I have 
never seen reference to reproductive technologies in 
this context. If the fertilization of embryos in 
research is a practice that is abhorrent to many or 
most people, then would it not be logical to question 
the continuing use of the results of such research? 
(Even the Catholic Church, which opposes the use of 
IVF and most other forms of assisted reproduction, 
does not invoke this argument to support its 
opposition.) (Tauer, 2001, 153) 
If the embryo research associated with IVF points to a problem 
of consistency for those who oppose stem cell research because it 
involves destroying persons, it is no less problematic for those who 
support stem cell research but insist on respecting the embryo and 
embrace the distinction between “research” and “spare” embryos. 
For as Tauer points out, Robert Edwards, the scientist involved in the 
first successful IVF procedure, began studying fertilization nearly 
thirty years before Louise Brovm was bom in 1978, and the first 
successful laboratory fertilization of human eggs took place a full ten 
years before she was bom. Tauer quotes Edwards' report on this 
work: “We fertilized many more eggs and were able to make 
detailed examinations of the successive stages of fertilization. We 
also took care to photograph everything because we would have to 
persuade colleagues of the tmth of our discoveries” (Tauer, 154).® 
Nor was the creation of these “research” embryos done secretly: 
Edwards and Steptoe published their work in the journal. Nature in 
1970 (Edwards, Steptoe, and Purdy, 1970). 
At the very least, then, there is something of an irony in the fact 
that so much attention has been devoted to developing and 
defending the distinctions between embryos created solely for 
research and embryos left over from IVF procedures, because there 
would be no embryos left over from IVF procedures had there not 
been embryos created solely for research purposes to develop IVF in 
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