[Use of embryonal CNS tissue in Parkinson disease from the medical ethics viewpoint]

The transplant therapy discussed here contains ethical problems of some weight. In order to analyse them it is inevitable to distinguish between merely indirectly connected ethical problems and those that are central to this therapy. To the latter belong dilemmas on the individual as well as the social level, problems concerning the model of consent (on part of the pregnant woman) and the application of the 'therapeutic indication' (on part of the Parkinson patient).

this transplant therapy is ethically highly questionable and should not be generally permitted; limited experiments for research may be necessary and ethically tolerable. More urgent is the pursuit of alternative therapeutic methods some of which are already being explored.