Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committees
The National Academies called for the establishment of Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight (ESCRO) Committees in its 2005 "Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research" to manage the ethical and legal concerns in human embryonic stem cell research. Because of the complexity and novelty of many of the issues involved in that research, the Guidelines committee believes that all research institutions engaged in human embryonic stem cell research should create and maintain these committees at the local level.
Dignity
In 1997, the National Consultative Committee for Ethics in the Life and Health Sciences, as well as other observers, noted that France's dignity-based laws on bio-medical research were paradoxical. The law prohibited the willful destruction of human embryos but directed that human embryos could be destroyed if they were more than five years old. The law prohibited research on human embryos created in France but permitted research on human embryos brought to France. The law prohibited researchers from creating embryos for research but allowed researchers to experiment with embryos that were superfluous after "in vitro" fertilization.