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

Julian Savulescu argues that destructive experimentation on human embryos is ethically permissible. He attempts to refute objections to such experimentation, and offers an account of the status of the early human embryo according to which it is the kind of entity upon which it is perfectly permissible to experiment. However, his attempts to refute the objections to destructive experimentation on human embryos are unconvincing, and the consequences of his own view of the status of the embryo are counter-intuitive.