About the Book
Saving lives versus taking lives: These are the stark terms in which the public regards human embryo research--a 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 begins--at 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.
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
About the Author :
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.
Review :
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.
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.
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.
At what point does an embryo or fetus become 'human'? This question is at the core of today's battle over stem cell research, and that battle, Maienschein believes, is central to questions about the respective roles of science and morality in a democracy. Maienschein, director of the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University, puts the question of when life begins in historical and philosophical context....This book should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the scientific and ethical issues that will dominate medicine in the next quarter century.
Maienschein brilliantly brings to the debate a variable absent in most discussions of the subject--history...[She] offers an insider's view on several fronts. A well-established academic whose field is the history of developmental biology, she is also a former Congressional fellow, and thus is well placed to deplore politicians' strategic invocation of the phrase 'sound science' to support their a priori ideological positions. Her mantra is that good ethics begin with good facts, such as the fact that differentiated cells appear and have the capacity to experience sensation only after fourteen days; that the heart beats only after twenty-two days; that organisms at birth are the product of both genes and the womb environment, which interact in an endless feedback loop; that societies have in the past drawn the line on where life begins at myriad points and will continue to do so as science and our tools shift our understanding of what life is. In short, her message is that, in a democratic pluralistic society, we must use facts and the lessons of history rather than gut instincts...to navigate a course that is respectful of competing views while rising to the challenges of biomedicine.
The debate in America over abortion and research with human embryos is so polarized that it is easy to forget that today's passionately held views of the intrinsic moral status of the embryo are but the latest in an ever-evolving understanding of human biology and its implications for theology and philosophy. Jane Maienschein's delightful book Whose View of Life? is a welcome reminder--and, for optimists, represents the hope--that today's intransigence might someday yield to a humbler stance by all partisans in this debate.
Maienschein's historical account is both engaging and accurate.
Jane Maienschein's engaging new book Whose View of Life? offers a historical perspective on the current debates over human embryo research. Maienschein's aim is to reveal the ways in which our understanding of what defines the beginning of a human life has been contested and has undergone transformation through the centuries. Her concise, elegant, and sweeping overview of the history of developmental biology shows how advances in science have often compelled the reformulation of questions and answers concerning the definition of when a life begins.
The hype surrounding embryonic stem-cell research is being played out in newspaper headlines touting miracle cures and ethical crises...Amid this cacophony, reading Jane Maienschein's thoughtful book, Whose View of Life?, is a quiet pleasure...Maienschein recommends tolerance, humility, and the avoidance of 'false dichotomies' that pit science against religion, or saving the life of a sick person against taking the life of an embryo. Neither science nor religious morality alone have the answers, she argues.
In providing a highly readable and reliable account of the history of attempts to understand the details of animal reproduction, [the author] offers an essential background for all who wish to base their views concerning the controversial issues of cloning, stem cell research and the scientific use of human embryos on evidence rather than on a fear of the unknown...She has done her part to defend reason and evidence, and for that, she deserves the attention and admiration of citizens concerned with the future of science in the United States.
