When Is an a Human Embryo Not Really an Embryo?
When it is politically expedient to pretend that it isn't yet human life:
There is long discussion happening at a previous post (click here to check it out), that has evolved into a discussion, among other matters, of whether a one-week old human embryo, often called a blastocyst, is really an embryo. Also, whether there is such a thing as a pre-embryo, that is an entity created either through fertilization or SCNT that, somehow, is not yet a truly living human organism.
Due to length, I am starting a new thread about this here: A pre-embryo is a contraction for the term pre-implantation embryo--meaning it is an embryo that has not yet developed to the point that it has developed a placenta and attached to a uterus. The term does not mean that it is not actually yet an embryo, a form of non life that comes before the embryo comes into being.
Hence, Human Embryology and Teratology, an embryology textbook, in the name of scientific accuracy, places the term "pre-embryo" 
under the categorization, "Undesirable Term in Human Embryology," further asserting that "embryo" is the accurate and hence, "preferable term." They write further:The term "pre-embryo" is not used here [in their book] for the following reasons: (1) it is ill-defined; (2) it is inaccurate...(3) it is unjustified because the accepted meaning of the world embryo includes all of the first 8 weeks; (4) it is equivocal because it may convey the erroneous idea that a new human organism is formed at only some considerable time after fertilization; and (5) it was introduced in 1986 "largely for public policy reasons." (My emphasis.)
Princeton biologist Lee Silver admits that the term pre-embryo is political. A pro-cloner and transhumanist, Silver wrote in his book Remaking Eden:
I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly...for reasons that are political, not scientific. [My emphasis.] The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day old embryo [the blastocyst] and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day old embryo [an embryo that has begun to develop differentiated tissues]. The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena--where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryoRedefining terms and blurring scientific distinctions to win a political debate is corrosive of science. Indeed, I am not alone in worrying that so-called advocates of "science," are devolving their beloved field into a mere special interest willing to use all of the spin, deception, obfuscation, and myth-making tools of the trade in order to obtain their desired political ends. And that's truly anti-science.(now called pre-embryo) experimentation--as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. "Don't worry," a doctor might say, "It's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating and freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back in your body."
Labels: Embryo. Pre-embryo
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:21 PM
22 Comments
22 Comments:
"And it will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing, except in virtue of an ambiguity, just as if one whom we call 'man', and others were to call 'not-man'; but the point in question is not this, whether the same thing can at the same time be and not be a man in name, but whether it can be in fact." - from Aristotle's Metaphysics
That is: you can use all the ambiguous words you want, but the facts will not follow after your wishful thinking. Either it is human, or it is not; either it is an embryo, or it is not; either it is alive, or it is not. Inventing terms that create an imaginary middle term will not make a middle state of being exist.
Either it is human, or it is not; either it is an embryo, or it is not; either it is alive, or it is not.
And those aren't always the same thing. Something can be human, like a human finger, and not be "a human", something can be alive, loose like a sperm cell or part of the body like an individual skin cell, but not be "a life", and something can be an embryo without being a human life.
Also, I want to say that conception should not be confused with fertilization. "Conception" is (obviously) a conceptual thing, fertilzation is the biological process. It is possible to conceive a child even if no fertilization actually happens, all that has to happen is someone has to get the idea of a child being born. That's why it is a sin to even think about having sex with someone you shouldn't have sex with, like Jimmy Carter confessed to.
So, in order, I think it goes:
Conception, fertilization, embryo, then, when blood starts flowing, a human life has begun. The process can stop at any point. The embryo, before it is a life, is basically a chemical process, and the blood brings the life, and with life, rights, unambiguously.
This way, which seems very deeply spiritually and scripturally sound, we don't have to mourn for unimplanted embryos or wasted sperm or egg cells, or skin cells, or bacteria, but we can have respect for all life. That doesn't mean humans aren't exceptional among living things, indeed human consciousnesses are the co-creators of the physical world, the light of the world, and animals are part of the darkness that doesn't comprehend.
(And in cases when fertilization might occur by accident, unknown to anyone's consciousness, like a tree falling in the forest, we actually conceive of the child afterwards, when someone becomes aware of it, but our conception is that it had been growing there since that one-night stand happened two months ago.)
You're splitting hairs. Let me clarify my terms, since you seem intent on muddling them:
Either it is a human being, or it is not.
Working from that premise:
A skin cell is not a human being. Neither is a sperm. They are parts of a human being, not complete organisms. Contrariwise, an embryo is a complete human being, an organism unto itself -- regardless of the arbitrary marker of "blood."
If you say it is not a human being, then how does it become one? Through the magic of theological biology, in which science is judged by whether it is "spiritually and scripturally sound"? You can't reason according to such categorical confusions. All conclusions based on such reasoning will be spurious, even if they are accidentally correct. Every single one.
Furthermore, it is nonsense to say that conception and fertilization are different points in embryology. They are identical, different terms for one event.
It appears that some sort of anti-rational gobbledygook is a prerequisite to denying an embryo its humanity, whether that gobbledygook be of the pseudo-scientific or of the pseudo-theological nature. Worst is when the two are combined.
"So, in order, I think it goes:
Conception, fertilization, embryo, then, when blood starts flowing, a human life has begun. The process can stop at any point. The embryo, before it is a life, is basically a chemical process, and the blood brings the life, and with life, rights, unambiguously."
This logic is bad science. Blood flow has nothing to do with whether you're alive. (thus the redefining of the word "death" in the 60's when they realized that a lack of heartbeat doesn't necessarily make you dead.) However, there are other things that do make you alive, that you have from fertilization. If you are growing/your cells are replicating; if you have a working metabolism and if your cells are working together for the good of the whole human being, you are biologically alive. Mr. Ford answered the section of your argument that confuses parts with wholes.
Josh B., since you are a bit late to the party, some background on John Howard's "blood and life" comment: On a previous blog entry someone pointed out that some Bible verses related to kosher dietary laws say that life-force is in blood, and then made a huge leap in logic to claim that this means Christians have to believe not only that "no blood = no life" but also "no blood = no human". John enthusiastically picked this up and now seems committed to the notion. Never mind the fact that it's faulty logic, poor reasoning, bad theology, and bad science...
It's not "nonsense" to say that conception is different from fertilization. And it is not nonsense to say that a person is not alive until it has blood flowing in it. Up until that point, it is a series of chemical reactions, like a hair that keep growing after death.
I refuse to accept that an unimplanted embryo is a person, a living person, because this implies a duty to implant embryos, which is wrong. There is no such duty, as embryos are not living things, they are dead until they have blood. You can disagree, but I'm the one that is right about this, sorry.
John: SCIENTIFICALLY, it is nonsense. If you argue moral value begins with blood, that is a different matter. But even here, blood activities are chemical in nature, for example bringing oxygen to cells and removing carbon dioxide.
John: you are making a moral judgment based on mistakes in scientific reasoning. It is not a question of opinion: you are dead wrong, scientifically speaking, and therefore dead wrong in your moral judgment as well.
You are not entitled to an opinion based on deliberate blindness to facts.
For God's sake (I mean that), stop pretending that the word "person" serves as any absolute basis for moral reasoning. It's a slippery term, applied where it is convenient. Stop asking whether it's a person, and start asking whether it is an individual human entity. The only scientifically acceptable answer is that an embryo is just that. Anything else is rationalization.
John Howard writes:
There is no such duty, as embryos are not living things, they are dead until they have blood.
John, have you really thought this through? Do you truly believe no creature is alive unless it has blood? If that's true, at a minimum creatures without a circulatory system such as bacteria, sponges, and fungus are not alive. If they require true blood, plants are not alive either. If we reasonably assume that the "blood" mentioned in the Old Testament is red heme, then we must also add insects and crustaceans to the list of dead matter. In other words, only mammals, reptiles, birds, and higher fish are alive, and all other organisms -- despite every appearance to the contrary -- are dead matter.
Is that in fact what you are claiming?
John Howard writes:
I refuse to accept that an unimplanted embryo is a person, a living person, because this implies a duty to implant embryos, which is wrong.
It seems to me a more rational approach would be to first determine the nature of the embryo and then consider the duties that unfold from that, rather than first rejecting a potential duty and then working backward to come up with a concept of embryo that justifies the rejection.
yes, blood activities are chemical, as all activities are, but with blood comes life. The life is in the blood. That means insects, fungus, bacteria, and plants are not alive, they are chemical reactions. An embryo is like a house being built according to plans by contractors, and it becomes a home, and alive, when a family moves in. Merely having a plan of a new person, perhaps in physical DNA, perhaps stored on a computer to be synthesized by a DNA synthesis company, perhaps already inside an oocyte, perhaps not, perhaps already dividing, does not mean a new person is alive. That doesn't happen until blood. I don't see how science can have any definitive opinion that isn't based on an arbitrary definition, and philosophically and religiously, it makes sense to me that blood brings life, magically. I don't think we have to mourn for unimplanted embryos anymore than we have to mourn for unsynthesized DNA. We can let frozen embryos thaw out and never gain life without having killed anyone, just like we can erase a custom sequence from the computer without synthesizing it. But once it has life in it, we have an obligation to not kill it.
The marker of "blood" is what is arbitrary. What are any of us but a process of becoming and relation? Indeed, there is no such thing as a fixed entity: all that is, is in flux. To say that the process that one is must have a certain quality before it can be considered real or alive is to deny that the only constant of reality is change; and this is to deny reality entire. And any line of reasoning that begins with the denial of reality is more than specious -- it is abhorrent.
Sure, God could have probably had life begin at other points, but he chose blood to give life to something.
Answer me about a DNA sequence stored on a computer. Is there an obligation to sequence it and implant it an egg? If somatic cell DNA is transferred into an egg cell, is there an obligation to shock it with the electricity to start it dividing? Or does the obligation to implant it begin as soon as the DNA is transferred?
I am making two points: that we should not put ourselves in a moral dilemma of having to implant cloned embryos. And that hey, the Bible is absolutely clear about where life is, in Genesis, John, and the Koran, so I think it is rather rude to insist that "science" has a better arbitrary definition and I'm denying reality.
If you are determined to believe that an embryo is not a human being until it has blood, then there's nothing I can say that will make you believe the world is round, either.
Science is not a matter of belief, but of logic and evidence. You are ignoring both in favor of an irrational (not supra-rational) belief, which by definition is to deny reality. Again and again I will say it: you can't use theology to prove anything scientific. I don't care how you choose to interpret the Bible: first, it has no bearing on a scientific question. Second, who gave you the authority to do so, anyway?
So you ignore the questions again? Is it a living human being pre-electric shock, or only after the shock, once it starts dividing? Is it a living human being before the nucleus is inserted into an egg, or does something magic happen when it gets inserted into an egg? How about when it exists only as a sequence on a computer? Do you feel there is an obligation to implant an embryo in a woman, and do you feel that applies to synthesizing sequences of DNA on a computer and inserting it into a woman's egg?
I am not ignoring anything, and I'm not trying to "prove anything scientific" (and I think there is something oxymoronic about that - science isn't about proof. here's a paper about that). I don't deny that embryos, if conditions are right, eventually become people, and we were all embryos once. But that doesn't have to mean that embryos are living creatures with rights. My religions all specifically say that life comes with blood, and yeah, there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.
Without a common frame of reference there can be no discussion. Scientifically, an embryo is a human organism once it comes into existence. John's religious view is that it is only when blood is generated by the embryo that it is alive. He believes, I assume, that this is the point at which a human organism has some moral value.
He won't accept the science and those who accept the science won't accept his religious view as determinative, so let's call it a day on this aspect of the discussion.
Thanks all.
let's call it a day on this aspect of the discussion.
OK, but how about the aspect of the discussion involving our obligation to implant embryos? Is there one? Does it include cloned and GE'd embryos? How about animal-human chimeras?
I think that any answers to these questions depend on whether you think an embryo is a human life; if we start to discuss them, we'll just come back down to our basic disagreement. -- Which is why I disregarded them before; they are entirely antecedent.
Although I will say that the question about a DNA sequence on a computer is no more compelling than one involving a photograph: an image is not the thing itself.
A sequence can be synthesized into real DNA. Today companies can only make short strands, but in theory they could perfect the technology and synthesize entire human genomes. At that point, presumably, you wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the DNA removed from a somatic cell. Would you insist that a human genome, whether synthesized or extracted from a somatic cell, be inserted into an egg or not? Shocked or not?
These are practical questions that will have to be answered. You seem to be saying that we do have an obligation to implant embryos. In who, or, in what? Does that imply an obligation to develop artificial wombs? And really, your stance would seem to apply even to cloned embryos, and GE'd embryos, and even if they are 95% human, 5% jellyfish. We should not implant any such embryos, whether they are alive or not.
I am not familiar with the technology, but it seems to me that you are confusing a representation with the real thing: a perfect representation of a DNA strand is not a DNA strand. Furthermore, even a DNA strand is not in and of itself a whole biological entity. No one has any duties toward a strand of DNA.
As for whether there is any obligation to implant embryos, a more important question is whether they should be created in the first place. In all the cases you mention, I would say they should not, since in each case the human (or mostly human) entity is treated like fodder, a mere product.
I'll wrap up by agreeing with you that we should certainly not create non egg and sperm embryos in the first place. The fact that people would feel an obligation to implant them, and that someone might implant them and they might then obtain what I feel would be the moral claim to live, is just one of the reasons we should not allow them to be made in the first place. If someone does start cloning or genetically engineering embryos, I will bring up the Leviticus stuff in an effort to convince you that it would not be murder to destroy those embryos.
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