Ethical Imaginaries
        
            By Gina Maranto, Biopolitical Times guest contributor
             | 03. 30. 2011
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
            Is each of us morally obligated to volunteer as a subject for biomedical research? Are we blameworthy if we don't sign up to participate in clinical trials? Of the several proponents of this startling notion, bioethicist John Harris put the case perhaps most forcefully in a 2005 article in the Journal of Biomedical Ethics. He contends that
 
   
    the obligation to participate in research should be compelling for anyone who believes there is a moral obligation to help others, and/or a moral obligation to be just and do one's share. Little can be said to those whose morality is so impoverished that they do not accept either of these two obligations.
 
  
 
  According to Harris, even children (providing they are competent) bear this obligation, via their parents.
 
  In the current Hastings Center Report [subscription only], Stuart Rennie examines this point of view. He surveys three arguments advanced singly or in concert by those who claim participation is a moral imperative:
 
   
    - the "rescue" argument: if one fails to participate in medical research, one fails to prevent harms and is blameworthy...
 
       
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
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Induction of experimental cell division to generate cells with reduced chromosome ploidy
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