The rapid advance of biochemistry in recent years has opened up previously unimaginable opportunities for medicine, presenting society with new moral dilemmas that call on us to re-explore and redefine the ethical limits of proper scientific research.
Here that important work is currently being undertaken by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction, expected to report in the near future. Ahead of that report, responding to pressing issues, the Government has made clear, uncontroversially, that it will back a proposed UN ban on human cloning, but has also, potentialy more controversially, insisted that while the EU may fund embryo stem cell research, it must not do so in Ireland.
Such research, which is believed to have the potential to find cures for such inherited conditions as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, involves the laboratory reproduction of stem cells from tissues taken from week-old embryos. These embryos, available to scientists from fertility clinics which inevitably generate more embryos than can be implanted in infertile couples, would otherwise simply be disposed of.
There is a real danger, however, that in the ethical waters muddied by emotionally charged debates on human cloning and abortion, a more nuanced case for allowing strictly controlled stem cell research may be swamped without serious consideration. It is a case that deserves at least a hearing.
A knee-jerk response to "life" issues in the past has led us up blind alleys. For many, the issue is simply one of respect for human life. Human life, in this view, begins at conception, and the state should regard its responsibility to protect the week-old, undeveloped zygote as seriously as it does the child.
And yet, supporters of stem cell research argue that is to miss the crucial point that the destruction of such tiny and undeveloped embryos is already the byproduct of fertility treatments that society regards as an important and acceptable response to the problem of childlessness. In the US an estimated 400,000 frozen embryos are currently being held by clinics; the bulk of them will be routinely destroyed. If anything, research advocates say, the use of tissue from such embryos is akin morally to the practice of organ transplantation and may be argued to give a life-affirming purpose to the redundant embryos.
Logically the surplus production and then destruction of embryos in IVF clinics makes their work the moral equivalent of embryonic stem cell research. Ban one, and we should ban the other, embryonic stem cell research advocates argue. And if we are to take the view that such research is indeed immoral, are we then also prepared to deny sufferers access to the cures produced by it in, say, Britain?
Some see it all as a slippery slope towards moral relativism. The way to approach a slippery path, however, is not to shy away, but to take one step at a time, carefully weighing the arguments. The case deserves to be heard.