It appears that I have not been as clear as I had hoped - whether embryos are individual human beings or not is irrelevant to discussions of parthenotes. Parthenotes are not embryos, and not individual human beings, either actually or potentially. Therefore, discussions of abortion and embryos and the individuality thereof have no bearing on whether or not parthenogenetic research is itself moral or worthwhile. It will have to be evaluated by a different set of criteria - as I said to another poster above, if you still feel that parthenote research is immoral, that is certainly your prerogative, but you will have to do it based on something besides the sanctity of human life, since parthenotes are not embryos.
Let's get a no spin zone going. Parthenogenesis 'reproduces' a like organism of the species in question. The same obfuscation tried with the specious differentiation of reproductive cloning and 'therapeutic cloning' is being tried with this form of REPRODUCTION. I purposely addressed the potential of stimulating a single haploid cell to reproduce itself, the single cell, because such a methodology will not stimulate a 46 chromosome ovum to begin mitosis, cell division of reproduction, reproducing a duplicate DNA organism. Parthenogenesis, as these 'scientists' wish to define it will not reproduce a born individual human being because the scientitst will not afford this newly conceived EMBRYO a human body in which to follow gestational development. Also, the EMBRYO so conceived from just the 46 chromosome ovum will likely be severely deformed, if past experiences with other parthenotes of higher mammals is any indication. BUT, the embryo so conceived will be an individual, alive human being, likely kept in vitro and never implanted in a uterine environ.