Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer

Helga Kuhse is an associate professor in bioethics at Monash University in Clayton, Australia. Peter Singer is the DeCamp Professor of the Princeton University Center for Human Values. Kuhse and Singer are the editors of the book Embryo Experimentation, from which this excerpt is taken.

The major objections to early embryo human experimentation are problematic. One objection is that a newly fertilized egg is genetically unique as a human being. However, an early embryo may divide at a certain stage, become different cell groups, and become identical twins. The other objection rests on the claim that every
human has a right to live. In actuality, the early embryo does not have the mental capacities of a human being, which supposedly set human beings apart from other organisms with...