Quite a few people have asked if we could use the book EMBRYO: A Defense of Human Life, by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen, for our Pro-Life Academy. Beginning March 16, (NEXT TUESDAY!!) we’ll discuss a chapter per week from this extraordinary book. Written in plain language, it gives an excellent biological description of development, as well as the philosophical and ethical arguments in favor of the embryo’s personhood. Check it out at Amazon. Order today!
We’ll be cross-posting with the folks over at Secular Pro-Life, as this book does not appeal to religion to make a compelling case for the human identity and status of the embryo.
BONUS: Coauthor Dr. Christopher Tollefsen has agreed to be with us during the time that we are reading his book. I met Dr. Tollefsen a few years ago and think he’s a terrific guy. He’s very approachable and able to get some pretty complex material described in simple, understandable language. We should have a good time with this.
Coming Home 
Fantastic. I’ll be looking forward to meeting Dr. Tollefson, if only in cyber space. If he’s as reasonable in person as he appears in his writing, if would be edifying to sit down for an afternoon face to face sometime. I’m not saying I agree with him, I’m saying he makes a reasonable presentation of his viewpoint, and sounds like a man who could discuss that with someone who differed, without turning into “Point Counter Point.” For those too young to remember the original Saturday Night Live, Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin used to do a parody of opposing viewpoints, where one ended “you male chauvinist pig” and the other began “Jane, you ignorant slut.” That was funny, the first time or two, but its a paradigm of how NOT to sit down and have a meaningful or edifying conversation. Dr. Tollefson’s writing is far, far away from that paradigm.
I haven’t read this book and I may try to get it through my library.
Publisher’s Weekly gave it a terrible review (who cares!). However, I did see mentioned that the authors believe in embryo adoption, something that would appear to NOT be supported by the Catholic church since it bypasses the conjugal relations in marriage. I will be interested to hear why he feels that embryo adoption is ok.
I agree that Publishers Weekly’s opinion is not worth much, one way or the other. From what I’ve read at Google Books, he writes well, puts his position across clearly, and is respectful of people holding other viewpoints without yielding one inch of ground from what he believes. Book reviewers these days are much too quick to reject a book just because it doesn’t accord with their own personal point of view. He lays out a very clear syllogism for what he wants anyone who disagrees to answer.
I didn’t see the part on embryo adoption, but I expect the reason to propose it is, if you believe each of these embryos is a human being, fully entitled to protection, then of course you want each and every one of them implanted in a womb where they can grow to live delivery. This, of course, provides some insight into why the Catholic church opposes in vitro fertilization. If nothing happened in vitro, there would be no embryos in cryogenic bottles in the first place.
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I like your site Ethics. I think business may give more bad karma to the most ethically motivated entrepreneur than you acknowledge, but I admire you for trying. We’ve had some discussions here about how business imperatives devalue children and families — in fact its one of the things we have our most pleasant agreement about.