Americus Dotter
A new website: Americusdotter.com captures the issues and frames the dialogue
Ethical judgments about the use of embryonic stem cells in research and therapies flow from the status accorded to the embryo. Those who feel that an embryo is a human being, or should be treated as one because it has the potential to become a person, contend that it is unethical to do anything to an embryo that could not be done to a person. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people have expressed the view that the embryo is nothing more than a ball of cells that can be treated in a manner similar to tissues used in transplantation. -- STEVE USDIN, introduction to Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Research on one kind of stem cell—human embryonic stem cells—has generated much interest and public debate. Pluripotent stem cells (cells that can develop into many different cell types of the body) are isolated from human embryos that are a few days old. Pluripotent stem cell lines have also been developed from fetal tissue (older than 8 weeks of development), according to the National Institutes of Health.
As science and technology continue to advance, so do ethical viewpoints surrounding these developments. It is important to educate and explore the issues, scientifically and ethically.
Below are some of the best recent books, article and other resources on the topic:
Americusdotter.com is the official page of an American author and advocate for women, best known for her autobiographical thriller, Soul Sale: A Rude Awakening.
Dotter was an ovum donor for many fertility clinics across the United States including Yale University, and helped many couples achieve their goal of creating a family. Stem cell research and the ethics surrounding it are one of her primary concerns. Her book, Soul Sale, is the raw story of spiritual warfare that she experienced in 2008 following the birth of her own child. It is an example of "quantum psychiatry," a term that is gaining popularity and support in the psychiatric community. Quantum psychiatry is thought to be where spirituality and science meet to expose unproven realities. In a time where the transhuman agenda is beginning to appear in headlines, the ethics surrounding stem cell research must be discussed and unintended consequences of our knowledge should be examined.
According to reviewers: "Amy Dotter successfully sheds light on these issues in a creative true story not like any ever heard before."
Dotter was interviewed for the documentary film Eggsploitation, discussing her story and the idea that "the fertility industry has a dirty little secret."
Bioethics and the Future of Stem Cell Research by Insoo Hyun:
Despite years of heated social controversy over the use of human embryos in embryonic stem cell research, the caravan of stem cell science continues to proceed at an unrelenting pace all around the world. Bioethics and the Future of Stem Cell Research urges readers to look beyond the embryo debate to a much wider array of ethical issues in basic stem cell science and clinical translational research, including research involving adult and induced pluripotent stem cells. Insoo Hyun offers valuable insights into complex ethical issues ranging from pre-clinical animal studies to clinical trials and stem cell tourism, all presented through a unique blend of philosophy, literature, and the history of science, as well as with Dr. Hyun's extensive practical experiences in international stem cell policy formation. This thoughtful book is an indispensible resource for anyone interested in the science of stem cells and the practical and philosophical elements of research ethics.
Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research (Inside Technology) by Charis Thompson:
After a decade and a half, human pluripotent stem cell research has been normalized. There may be no consensus on the status of the embryo -- only a tacit agreement to disagree -- but the debate now takes place in a context in which human stem cell research and related technologies already exist. In this book, Charis Thompson investigates the evolution of the controversy over human pluripotent stem cell research in the United States and proposes a new ethical approach for "good science." Thompson traces political, ethical, and scientific developments that came together in what she characterizes as a "procurial" framing of innovation, based on concern with procurement of pluripotent cells and cell lines, a pro-cures mandate, and a proliferation of bio-curatorial practices. Thompson describes what she calls the "ethical choreography" that allowed research to go on as the controversy continued. The intense ethical attention led to some important discoveries as scientists attempted to "invent around" ethical roadblocks. Some ethical concerns were highly legible; but others were hard to raise in the dominant procurial framing that allowed government funding for the practice of stem cell research to proceed despite controversy. Thompson broadens the debate to include such related topics as animal and human research subjecthood and altruism. Looking at fifteen years of stem cell debate and discoveries, Thompson argues that good science and good ethics are mutually reinforcing, rather than antithetical, in contemporary biomedicine.
The Future is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics by Kristol William(Editor), Eric Cohen(Editor, Contributor), George J. Annas (Contributor), Ronald Bailey (Contributor) & other multiple contributors:
Who could have imagined that President Bush's first special address to the nation would be about the coming genetic revolution? Or that one of the defining issues in American Politics would be stem cell research? Clearly, a national debate has begun that will not soon end — one that will force America to confront whether genetics advances will contribute to human dignity or threaten it, whether there are moral limits to scientific progress, and in general what life will look like in the genetic age. Welcome to the politics of the 21st century.
This collection, edited by William Kristol and Eric Cohen, chronicles the start of this great national debate. It looks back, beginning with selections from Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis, who first imagined the possibility of a Brave New World many decades ago. It looks forward, moving on to the current debate over human cloning and stem cells, including articles, essays, speeches and testimony from genetic enthusiasts and critics, scientists and moralists, politicians and scholars. An original introduction by Kristol and Cohen maps out the major disagreements, the questions ahead, and their own view that America's unchecked faith in technological progress needs a radical reconsideration.
Other selections include essays by Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama and Charles Krauthammer; testimony from Geron president Thomas O'Karma, bioethicist Daniel Callahan and actor-activist Michael J. Fox; speeches from the House of Representatives debate on human cloning; and the President's address to the nation.