Human Embryo Research: Lessons from History

LeRoy Walters, Georgetown bioethicist and one of the authors of the report of the Ethics Advisory Board report on in vitro fertilization (IVF), reflects on the trajectory that federal policy on human embryo followed in the decades after the report’s publication. Walters argues that different presidential administrations in the United States have ignored the ethics of embryo research and have generally lacked decisive action, for which the United Kingdom set a model example.