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Research involving human embryonic stem cells promises the prospect of great medical benefits, including for example the possibility of cellbased therapies for degenerative diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and the creation of autologous transplants by therapeutic cloning, minimising the risk of immunological rejection. However, the derivation of human embryonic stem cells necessarily entails research upon the human embryo and the destruction of the embryo from which they are taken, and thus the embryonic stem cell debate has reopened the discussion about when (if ever) and on what basis is embryo research permissible. Whilst the debate about embryo research in the 1980s and 1990s centred upon the increased knowledge that could be gained by embryo research in relation to reproductive medicine, particularly assisted reproductive medicine, the advent of embryonic …