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Embryo: A Defense of Human Life Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen. New York: Doubleday, 2008. ISBN: 978-0385522823; 256 PAGES, HARDCOVER, $23.95.
Human dignity is sometimes best exemplified by human heroism, as in the case of Noah Markham. Noah, trapped in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, was rescued from the flood waters by a dedicated team of police officers in a flat-bottomed boat. He was the youngest person to escape from the disaster - he was a frozen embryo at the time.
This happy ending is also a compelling beginning to Embryo: A Defense of Life, by Princeton law professor Robert George and University of South Carolina philosopher Christopher Tollefsen. Their premise is that baby Noah, born by Caesarean section on January 16, 2007, was and is the same perso« who was rescued (along with fourteen hundred other embryos) from a flooded fertility clinic sixteen months earlier. The authors make their case in the face of a contentious national debate on the ethics of embryo-destructive research. They attempt to do so without appeal to religious arguments, using the language of biology and philosophy. In this...