Issues 150-126

Issue 130: Dabrock, Peter; Klinnert, Lars: Würde für verwaiste Embryonen? Ein Beitrag zur ethischen Debatte um embryonale Stammzellen. July 2001

The categorical attribution of human dignity (Menschenwürde), as defined by Kant and by the German Constitution, can be applied to embryos in vivo and in vitro. This can plausibly be proved by a combination of body-phenomenological and systemtheoretical perspectives.
Yet, in matters of application the unconditional attribution of human dignity must be put together with empirical identity markers. This idea is presented by the fact of treating brain death as jurisdictionally equivalent to a person´s death.
A human living has de facto come to its end and can legitimately be defined as dead when (1) there is neither the biological environment as necessary condition, nor the social environment as sufficient condition of an autopoietical, bodily developmental process and (2) the human living is not yet able to become object of offending its self respect. Similar to organ-transplantation in case of brain death, using this dead embryo for research with high ranking therapeutical aims seems - under certain conditions - to be tenable.