Recent advancements in developmental biology enable the creation of embryo-like structures from human stem cells, which we refer to as human embryo-like structures (hELS). These structures provide promising tools to complement—and perhaps ultimately replace—the use of human embryos in clinical and fundamental research. But what if these hELS—when further improved—also have a claim to moral status? What would that imply for their research use? In this paper, we explore these questions in relation to the traditional answer as to why human (...) embryos should be given greater protection than other (non-)human cells: the so-called Argument from Potential (AfP). According to the AfP, human embryos deserve special moral status because they have the unique potential to develop into persons. While some take the development of hELS to challenge the very foundations of the AfP, the ongoing debate suggests that its dismissal would be premature. Since the AfP is a spectrum of views with different moral implications, it does not need to imply that research with human embryos or hELS that (may) have ‘active’ potential should be completely off-limits. However, the problem with determining active potential in hELS is that this depends on development passing through ‘potentiality switches’ about the precise coordinates of which we are still in the dark. As long as this epistemic uncertainty persists, extending embryo research regulations to research with specific types of hELS would amount to a form of regulative precaution that as such would require further justification. (shrink)

Until the late twentieth century, there were three main political currents in the Netherlands: Christian, Labor, and Liberal, giving Christian party politics a stronger position than in European countries with a binary division between conservative and progressive. The history of the debate about embryo research coincides with the end of this period. Whereas in the 1980s the Christian Democrat party still had strong religiously motivated views about embryo protection, it has since lost both the power and the drive to pursue (...) this. However, due to strategic opportunities arising in the margin of Dutch coalition politics, smaller parties inspired by Christian belief are still quite influential on issues of medical ethics in the highly fragmented political landscape of the present. (shrink)