Embryo Research and Ethical Considerations

Research with human embryo is part of medical research in general and the ethical requirements and rules of medical research should apply to them. They should be governed by previous international guidelines relevant to this problem such as the Nuremberg and Helsinki Declarations (1964 and 1975), the CIOMS (1982), the Inuyama Declaration (1990), and the Cairo declaration of (1991) for the Muslim Countries(19, 20).

First and foremost in Muslim societies account should be taken of the provisions and spirit of Islamic Sharia in formulating rules and guidelines, taking into account local and social conditions of the society where the research is conducted. In Islam, being a religion of mercy and compassion, one should not inflict any harm on human beings or animals in conducting or applying the results of such research(21).

Population based embryo research should abide by the following principles :

a- It must be in the interest of  humanity.

b- It  must cause no harm to the individual, fetus, humankind or society.

c- It must respect the autonomy of competent persons and protect those incapable of autonomy.

d- It should observe justice, both distributive and corrective.

e- It should insure academic integrity.

Respect for individual freedom of choice should be observed. Coerced participation in embryo research is inadmissible. Free, informed, consent should be obtained from the couple (husband and wife) after explaining the research and its implications for them. As embryo research involves the couple, the free informed consent of both husband and wife must be obtained in advance.

Justice dictates that the beneficiary of scientific research results should be the society that took the responsibility of the research and subjected its members to research risks(9). Population based embryo research conducted in the various countries should, therefore, be concerned with the health problems of each of them and be beneficial to them. They should not aim only at serving other countries, without benefiting the countries where the research was conducted.

Moreover, distributive justice should be secured within the society when such research is conducted. This means that research should not be conducted with a particular class of the society, such as the poor, whereas its basic benefits would accrue to another class, such as that of the rich. Genetic therapeutic embryo research resulting in a costly treatment which only the rich can afford, although the preliminary experiments were conducted on the poor classes of the society, represents a serious violation of this principle of distributive justice. Therefore, when such research is conducted, the research sample should be as representative as possible, covering all the classes of the particular community, socially, economically, culturally and religiously. They should not be limited to one particular class of society(22).

Also distributive justice should be observed when applying therapy resulting from embryo research. Therapy should take no account of creed, sex, the size of classes (majority or minority) or political privileges(9).

Corrective justice is concerned with compensation of the wrong act. In population based embryo research group compensation involves issues of resource allocation, access to scarce benefits, and more particularly the difficult situation of possible compensation for other generations which may be affected by conducting such research. 

Academic integrity and honesty are upheld not only in research design and implementation, but also in the presentation and publishing of research data. Within the academic world, there are occasional cases of fraud or falsification, or cases where expectations regarding the results of research are published prematurely or where scientific pronouncements are made on the basis of the researcher's own prejudices. There are also incidents where researchers dispute the privilege of a scientific discovery or the scientific value of other's research. Research sometimes is conducted in developing countries, because it is impossible to be conducted in another place because of statutory provisions. The problem of double standards is a real concern in scientific research conducted on human embryos.

At the first International Conference on Bioethics in Human Reproduction Research in the Muslim World held in Cairo during the period 10-13th December, 1991, the question of double standards and ethics between donating agencies, whether international, governmental, national or international voluntary organizations or pharmaceutical companies in the developed countries and their recipient agencies in the developing countries, was discussed at large(20, 23). It was concluded that the funding agency should submit its research protocol for review and approval to its ethics authority. The research should be submitted together with a recommendation for its implementation by a responsible authority in the donor country, such as officials from health services, research and science academies, research institutes or universities. The recipient organization or institute that will undertake the research in its country should submit the research protocol to its own ethics authority. It should be ascertained that the research project meets the ethical requirements of the country in which the research shall be conducted.