The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering

While Sandel staunchly opposes genetic engineering, he does not object to medicine and healing. Sandel hopes that stem cell research could lead to medical breakthroughs. He does not believe that his opposition to bioengineering is antithetical to his support for this research.

In 2006, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have provided funding to stem cell research on the grounds that the research necessitated the destruction of blastocysts during the stem cell extraction process. He described this process as “the taking of innocent human life” (103), though he also declined to describe it as murder. Sandel seeks to answer some pressing questions about stem cell research. The first is straightforward: should stem cell research be permissible at all? People who consider an embryo to hold the same status as a baby would say no: For them, stem cell research is tantamount to infanticide. Sandel will return to this question later in the chapter.

One of the debates in stem cell research is whether it is more ethical to extract stem cells from cloned zygotes created for the purpose of research, or whether it is preferable to use non-cloned zygotes left over from fertility treatments.