Reply to Savulescu: Why we should maintain a prohibition on destructive research on human embryos

Julian Savulescu argues that destructive experimentation on human embryos i s ethically permissible. He attempts to refute objections to such experimen tation, and offers an account of the status of the early human embryo accor ding to which it is the kind of entity upon which it is perfectly permissib le to experiment. However, his attempts to refute the objections to destruc tive experimentation on human embryos are unconvincing, and the consequence s of his own view of the status of the embryo are counter-intuitive.