  The potential therapeutic benefits of HESC research provide strong grounds in favor of the research. If looked at from a strictly consequentialist perspective, it’s almost certainly the case that the potential health benefits from the research outweigh the loss of embryos involved and whatever suffering results from that loss for persons who want to protect embryos. However, most of those who oppose the research argue that the constraints against killing innocent persons to promote social utility apply to human embryos. Thus, as long as we accept non-consequentialist constraints on killing persons, those supporting HESC research must respond to the claim that those constraints apply to human embryos.