Saving lives versus taking lives: These are the stark terms in which the public regards human embryo researcha battleground of extremes, a war between science and ethics. Such a simplistic dichotomy, encouraged by vociferous opponents of abortion and proponents of medical research, is precisely what Jane Maienschein seeks to counter with this book. Whose View of Life? brings the current debates into sharper focus by examining developments in stem cell research, cloning, and embryology in historical and philosophical context and by exploring legal, social, and ethical issues at the heart of what has become a political controversy.
Drawing on her experience as a researcher, teacher, and congressional fellow, Jane Maienschein provides historical and contemporary analysis to aid understanding of the scientific and social forces that got us where we are today. For example, she explains the long-established traditions behind conflicting views of how life beginsat conception or gradually, in the course of development. She prepares us to engage a major question of our day: How are we, as a 21st-century democratic society, to navigate a course that is at the same time respectful of the range of competing views of life, built on the strongest possible basis of scientific knowledge, and still able to respond to the momentous opportunities and challenges presented to us by modern biology? Maienschein's multidisciplinary perspective will provide a starting point for further attempts to answer this question.
Jane Maienschein is Regents' Professor, President's Professor, and Parents Association Professor at the School of Life Sciences and Director of the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University. She is also Adjunct Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. From the Beginning
2. Interpreting Embryos, Understanding Life
3. Genetics, Embryology, and Cloning Frogs
4. Recombinant DNA, IVF, and Abortion Politics
5. From Genetics to Genomania
6. Facts and Fantasies of Cloning
7. Hopes and Hypes for Stem Cells
Conclusion
Notes
Index
What People are Saying About This
Jane Maienschein has produced an invaluable book. She invites the reader to consider the question of how 'a life' has been defined from diverse viewpoints. Her rich experience as a scholar, teacher and legislative advisor makes her account essential reading for anyone interested in the social consequences of modern biology and biotechnology.
Michael S. Gazzaniga
Jane Maienschein has written a startlingly clear account of our current knowledge and anxiety about embryos, stem cells and the swirl of politics that surrounds these issues. Whose View of Life? is widely informative and yet balanced and even. This is a book that should be read by scientists, ethicists, moralists and the general public. Indeed, I hope the publishers send a free copy to each member of Congress. Michael S. Gazzaniga, Dean of the Faculty, Dartmouth College, and member of the President's Commission on Bioethics
Garland Allen
Jane Maienschein has produced an invaluable book. She invites the reader to consider the question of how 'a life' has been defined from diverse viewpoints. Her rich experience as a scholar, teacher and legislative advisor makes her account essential reading for anyone interested in the social consequences of modern biology and biotechnology. Garland Allen, Professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis
Jonathan Weiner
This is a wonderfully timely, sensible, and clear-headed look at the one of the most controversial issues in biomedicine today. It is just the book we would hope for from a distinguished historian of biology and medicine. Most people who have been following the story of cloning and stem cells for the last half dozen years or so--say since Dolly--have a grazing, close-up view. Whose View of Life? provides the panoramic perspective that we sorely need. How lucky we are to have Jane Maienschein to widen our horizons. Jonathan Weiner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Beak of the Finch