Respect?

From an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post by two professors at a major research center:

"While we recognize and respect embryos as early forms of human life, we do not believe that embryos in a dish have the same moral status as children and adults."


If you look at the protocols for actual experiments, as fodder for medical experimentation, a single human embryo often has a lower moral status than a monkey. Perhaps even lower than a dog.

How exactly do they "respect" human embryos? Or is it just a nice-sounding word to provide PR cover?

If "early" forms of human life are fair game, how "late" a form do you have to be in order to be safe?