To the editor:

Biotechnology advocates are consistently mystified that the general public is wary of biotechnology and science in general. Your editorial “Turning back the clock” (Nat. Biotechnol. 20, 411, 2002) provides one reason why. Although there can be no argument that the alleviation human suffering is a moral good, to many serious people the creation of an embryo is also the creation of a new human life. The subsequent destruction of that embryonic life for the purpose of research is therefore problematic. Apparently, a discussion of why the embryo is not a nascent human life (or, if its humanity is acknowledged, why it has no value other than as a means to an end for older human beings) wasn't worth mentioning, even though it is at the core of the stem cell debate. As a result, the editors of Nature Biotechnology come across as yet another group of technologists who believe that as long as science can do something, it should be done. In the case of stem cells, it's done under the false premise that ends (human disease) justify any means (the destruction of human life). If society accepts the idea that protecting human life is not an absolute good, then a potentially frightening slippery slope of other exceptions based on eugenics and other factors is a distinct possibility.

See Reply to "ES research and immorality".