Appendix G. 
255 
ES cells should not be treated as 
private property; they are res 
communis or common property. 
Treating ES cells as property will 
undermine scientific discovery 
and technological innovation in 
the field of regenerative medicine. 
(Resnik, 2002, 139) 
Although the ethical objections to commodifying stem cell work 
can not be sorted out as neatly as this table suggests, Resnik 
correctly identifies a variety of such objections. I will not try to 
defend it here, but my own view is that the problem is not just that 
stem cells and their products may be commodified, but that market 
rhetoric may come to dominate the discussion (and practice) of 
regenerative medicine in a way that is dehumanizing. That is, 
market-rhetoric may lead us ultimately to think of humans as 
artifacts. In short, I take very seriously Margaret Radin’s argument 
that the rhetoric in which we conceive our world affects who and 
what we are (Radin, 1996, 82).^^ At the same time, however, stem 
cell research is most likely to bear therapeutic fruit, if there is a 
market in stem cells and their products. The pressing moral 
question, then, is how do we promote the benefits that stem cell 
research may yield without succumbing to a market rhetoric that 
reduces humans to commodities? 
Several writers have suggested that one answer may be to 
promote greater governmental regulation. For example, Holland 
argues for moving beyond a policy of restricting federal funding of 
stem cell research but allowing an unregulated private market in this 
field to active regulation to curb the private sector’s work on stem 
cells. Lori Knowles suggests that the United States might adopt a 
body like Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board as a way 
to allow a market to function, but with oversight that would provide 
access to potential cells for further research and price controls of 
products to insure widespread access (Knowles, 1990, 40). George 
Annas has suggested that we need to establish a federal Human 
Experimentation Agency to regulate in the area of human 
experimentation. (Annas, 1998, 18). As Annas puts it: 
Virtually all those who have studied the matter have 
concluded that a broad-based public panel is needed 
to oversee human experimentation in the areas of 
genetic engineering, human reproduction, 
xenografts, artificial organs, and other boundary- 
crossing experiments. (19) 
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