Jane Maienschein, Whose View of Life?: Embryos, Cloning, and Stem Cells :Harvard University Press, 2003, 368 pp

摘要

Much has been said and written about the ethics of cloning, stem cells and embryo research. The newspapers were filled with diverse opinions, public debates emerged in many countries of the world and expert councils were set up to support the societal decision making regarding the regulation of the scientific and prospective medical use of embryos and stem cells. During these discussions the bioethically relevant questions "what is life", "when does life begin" and "are embryos and stem cells derived from them potential life" seemed to be all new and thus extraordinarily challenging. At the same time the plurality of possible answers to those fundamental questions triggered reasonable puzzlement not only of journalists, politicians and scientists but also in the broad public. Exploring the origins of this plurality and the long history of the questions raised is the great merit of Jane Maienschein's "Whose view of life". It adds to the body of literature a history of embryology and its social, legal and ethical implications at different times and explores how Regenerative Medicine became a political and societal controversy. Her refreshing study does not recapitulate facts familiar to the historian or ethicist of medicine and the life sciences-as many other studies did already-but offers new insights from a contextualising point of view.