Written by Robert P. George, Maureen Condic & Patrick Lee
Monday, July 20 2009 18:18
“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” (Langman’s Medical Embryology, 7th ed., 1995)
For people who advocate the killing of embryonic human beings in the cause of biomedical research, the Holy Grail is an argument that would definitively establish that the human embryo, at least early in its development, is not a living human organism and therefore not a human being at all. The problem for these advocates is that all the scientific evidence points in precisely the opposite direction. Modern human embryology and developmental biology have shown that fertilization produces a new and distinct organism: a living individual of the human species in the embryonic stage of his or her development.

Some proponents of embryo-destructive research are willing to face up to these biological facts. They concede that human embryos are living individuals of the human species, but deny that this gives them the moral status of being persons. According to this argument, not all human beings are equal; not all possess inherent dignity and a right to life. Some, including those at early developmental stages, are not (or are not yet) “persons,” and they may therefore (at least in some circumstances, or in the pursuit of some goals) legitimately be killed.

There is much to be said against this position, but its defects are philosophical, not scientific. Its proponents recognize that there is no Holy Grail out there to find, and they are willing to defend the killing of human embryos while facing up to the biological facts. But then there are the Grail searchers. These people are determined to prove that what modern human embryology has been telling us is wrong, and to this end they scavenge the fields of molecular biology and human genetics.

Among the Grail searchers, there is none more determined than Ronald Bailey, science writer for the libertarian magazine Reason. Every now and then Bailey pops up to make a dramatic announcement: The Grail has been found! A few years ago, for example, he used a reductio ad absurdum that employed an analogy to cloning. Bailey offered to prove that every cell in the human body has as much potential for development as a human embryo. Therefore, he wrote, human embryos are the biological and moral equivalent of body (“somatic”) cells; they have no greater dignity than, for example, the skin cells that we rub or wash off our bodies every day.

Here is how the argument went: Each cell in the human body possesses the entire DNA code; each has become specialized (as muscle, skin, etc.) by having most of that code turned off. In the scientific process known as cloning, the portions of the code that were previously deactivated are reactivated. So, Bailey concluded, quoting bioethicist Julian Savulescu: “If all our cells could be persons, then we cannot appeal to the fact that an embryo could be a person to justify the special treatment we give it.” Since plainly we are not prepared to regard all our cells as human beings, we shouldn’t regard embryos as human beings.

Unfortunately for Bailey, his analogy between somatic cells and human embryos collapses under scrutiny. The somatic cell is something from which a new organism can be generated; it is not itself, however, a distinct organism. On its own, it remains just what it is (a constituent cell of muscle, skin, etc.). For it to contribute to the generation of a complete living being, significant interventions are needed, including the addition of critical molecular factors provided by a human egg cell.

A human embryo doesn’t need that. It already is a distinct, self-developing, complete (though immature) human organism. If someone tried to implant a somatic cell in the prepared uterus of a woman, nothing would happen — just as nothing would happen if someone tried to implant a sperm or an unfertilized egg. But a human embryo implanted in the prepared uterus of a woman will, barring some defect or accident, grow and develop, emerge from the womb some months later, soon begin walking and talking, and in a few years be asking mom and dad for the car keys.

So Bailey hadn’t discovered the Holy Grail after all. But now he’s back, claiming once again that it has been found. His claim comes in an online post criticizing an argument we made in response to some other Grail searchers.

Those searchers are William Neaves and Gerard Magill. Their candidate for the Holy Grail is an argument purporting to show that human embryos are the ontological and moral equivalent of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Again the form of the argument is reductio ad absurdum. No one supposes that iPSCs are human organisms, so if it can be shown that iPSCs are the equivalent of embryos, then embryos cannot be human organisms either.

What are iPSCs? They are a widely touted class of cells that have been produced by Shinya Yamanaka in Japan and James Thomson in the United States. They are made by reprogramming (or “de-differentiating”) ordinary somatic cells to the pluripotent state — the state from which they can be coaxed to become virtually any type of tissue: heart, liver, nerve, you name it. What is exciting about these cells is that they have the medically useful features of embryonic stem cells, yet they can be produced without killing (or even using) embryos.

According to Neaves and Magill, however, iPSCs are not merely the biological equivalent of embryonic stem cells; they are the equivalent of the embryos that are destroyed to produce embryonic stem cells. On what basis do they advance this idiosyncratic view? (It is, incidentally, a view plainly rejected by Yamanaka and Thomson, who have explained that the significance of iPSCs is that they do not raise the ethical problems associated with killing human embryos.) Neaves and Magill claim that an iPS cell, though obviously not an organism, is the biological equivalent of an embryo because it can develop into a human organism.

How is that? Well, when joined to a tetraploid “embryo” (an entity created by fusing the first two cells of a normal embryo into a single cell that contains twice the normal amount of DNA), an iPS cell will contribute to the development of a mature organism of its species (as has been shown with mice). In this procedure, according to Magill and Neaves, the iPS cells are merely being provided with a placenta — which they view as a “component of a supportive environment for development,” like a uterus, rather than as an integral part of the developing organism. Just as a human embryo needs only a suitable environment to develop itself to a mature stage, so does an iPS cell need only the suitable environment supplied by a tetraploid “embryo.”

Replying to Neaves and Magill, we demonstrated that their claim that iPS cells develop into a complete embryo is scientifically inaccurate. Rather, they become part of a distinct, developing organism, consisting of structures derived from both the iPS cells and the tetraploid cells. The key question is whether a placenta is just a “component of a supportive environment” or an actual organ of the embryo, and anyone familiar with human embryology will recognize that it is a mistake to classify a placenta as a mere “environmental requirement.”

Here’s why: The developing organism requires information provided by both inner cell mass cells and trophectoderm cells (the precursors to the placenta). So in the prenatal stage of development, the placenta is an integral part of the developing human, functioning as a vital organ and even sharing a common blood circulation with the rest of the developing embryonic body. In contrast, the uterus of the mother is clearly part of a distinct organism that is not integral to the embryo itself, but merely provides a supportive environment and a source of nutrition. Hence a placenta is an organ of the embryo, albeit a transitory one. This means that together, the iPS cells and the tetraploid cells constitute an entire, integrated whole — an organism. In stark contrast, at no point does an iPS cell function as a whole organism by itself. So any argument resting on the claim that an iPS cell is the biological equivalent of an embryo simply won’t fly. The Grail searchers will have to search on.

But Ronald Bailey just doesn’t want to give this one up. In “Do Skin Cells Have Souls?” he deploys the tedious and shopworn strategy of writing as if only religious zealots think human embryos are human organisms — thus his reference to souls in the title and a reference to angels on the head of a pin in the concluding sentence of his essay. But as he well knows, biology and human-embryology texts have for a long time been quite clear that a new human organism comes into existence at fertilization. That is, in human reproduction, when sperm joins ovum, these two individual cells cease to be, and their union generates a new and distinct organism. This organism is a whole, though in the beginning developmentally immature, member of the human species. Readers need not take our word for this: They can consult any of the standard human-embryology texts, such as Moore and Persaud’s The Developing Human, Larsen’s Human Embryology, Carlson’s Human Embryology & Developmental Biology, and O’Rahilly and Mueller’s Human Embryology & Teratology.

Bailey characterizes our argument in the exchange with Neaves and Magill as “convoluted.” At one point he even calls it “desperate.” But one would be hard put to decipher from Bailey’s account of that exchange what the basic issue was. In various places we have made explicit what is generally assumed in biology: If an organism has all the internal resources, along with an active tendency or disposition, to develop itself to the stage where it performs the functions specific to an organism of a certain kind, requiring only a suitable environment and nutrition for that development, then it is an organism of that kind, at an immature stage of its life cycle. Only thus can one recognize a chrysalis as an immature member of Lepidoptera, or a tadpole as an immature member of a frog species. Human embryos, whether they are formed by fertilization (natural or in vitro) or by successful somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT — i.e., cloning), do have the internal resources and active disposition to develop themselves to the mature stage of a human organism, requiring only a suitable environment and nutrition. In fact, scientists distinguish embryos from other cells or clusters of cells precisely by their self-directed, integral functioning — their organismal behavior. Thus, human embryos are what the embryology textbooks say they are, namely, human organisms — living individuals of the human species — at the earliest developmental stage.

Neaves and Magill attempted to refute this argument by pointing to “tetraploid complementation.” But in this process, the iPS cells function as part of a distinct, developing organism, consisting of structures derived from both the iPS cells and the tetraploid cells. It is plain that the iPS cells do not survive the tetraploid complementation procedure, any more than sperm and egg cells survive the process of fertilization. Like the sperm or the ovum, the iPS cells function only as part of a larger whole.

Near the end of his comments, Bailey discusses “induced totipotent cells,” but in the course of his remarks, he reveals a failure to grasp the central question about them. We do not have to wait for scientists to produce such “induced totipotent cells” and speculate about whether they would be considered embryos; such cells already exist. By Bailey’s definition of totipotency (i.e., the ability to produce all cell types, including those of the placenta), many human tumors and all human embryonic stem cells and human iPS cells are “totipotent.” But although human iPS cells are able to produce all cell types, they are not able to organize these cells into a coherent body, and therefore they are not the biological, moral, or ontological equivalent of embryos.

The truth is that iPSCs are not “totipotent” in the same sense that embryos are totipotent. Embryos not only make all cell types; they also orchestrate all the complex events of development needed to generate a coherent, integrated living body. And therein lies the characteristic that distinguishes embryos from non-organismal cells, including iPSCs. The artificial production of a totipotent cell capable of such an integrated developmental sequence has, of course, already occurred in cloning. Our point was that, so far, biology indicates that the production of a totipotent cell (a new embryo) requires factors derived from the oocyte (an egg cell). If those factors could be derived in some other fashion, their combination would generate a new entity, rather than allowing an already existing entity (such as a stem cell) to actualize an innate capacity. Yet even if that could be done, it would not negate our view of what constitutes an embryonic human organism; it would merely confirm, as cloning already proves, that there is more than one way to produce an embryo. So the Grail searchers would even then have to remain on their never-ending quest.

Robert P. George is Founder of the American Principles Project; Maureen Condic is an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine; Patrick Lee is the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Professor of Bioethics and director of the Institute of Bioethics at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Originally published on National Review on July 20th, 2009 as "The Grail Searchers: Despite endless efforts to prove the contrary, science shows that an embryo is a human being."

When I begin seeing the anti-choice activists at the cemetery every month with tiny caskets and headstones burying their menstrual flow and nocturnal emissions, I will believe that they really equate an egg with a human being. Meanwhile, keep feeding them egg salad sandwiches whenever they order chicken salad, and fried eggs at KFC, daring them to admit they know the difference.

Michelle Cory
bravo Gabby hayes, once and for all, A fetilized egg is a zygote, It is a living organism. a living organism is not a person. a living organism can be algae. Now, you need an incubator willing to nourish this embryo, if a woman does not want it to become a person, then she is responsibe not to continue the pregnancy. if she continued the pregnancy, she would be creating a person, an unwanted ,unloved, person, and forcing her to maintain a pregnancy is an act of violence and slavery.

MEN: wear a freakin condon, and if thats too uncomforable get a vasectomy. that way you wont impregnate a woman, and she will not need or want an abotion.
Grow up ! and wise up. take responsibility, we are not 2nd class citizens .
sincerely Michelle Cory.
as far as Fl. gov. Charlie christ , he better get his act together. or he wont be gov. for long.

Your readers may be aware of a delightful paper by a British-based philosopher Toby Ord about the implications of "eggs are people too". Only around 50 percent of fertilised eggs survive from conception to implantation -- and a smaller percentage more are lost after that point. Since pregnancy isn’t detected until implantation, any loss of an embryo (I use this term for convenience though it's not strictly correct) up to that stage goes unnoticed. Most people, then, are unaware of the huge amount embryo loss taking place around them every day. That natural loss, Ord argues, translates into the “deaths” of around 220 million embryos a year – or "people", if the eggs-are-persons folks prefer. Ord (facetiously) calls this a “scourge,” and points out that it is indiscriminate, affecting people across the globe, killing its victims within weeks of onset and, perhaps most cruelly, killing “only the very young and innocent.” Since embryo loss through other means, including abortion and IUDs and morning after pills, pales in comparison to this toll, he argues that one would think the proponents of embryos-as-persons would be calling for a huge commitment of research dollars to stop or at least minimize this scourge. We would expect, Ord argues, a call to arms, or at least heated discussion in journals or the church. Nada!
Ord has counter-arguments to the predictable objections, like "but this is natural" while IUDs, Plan B and abortions are not: Cancer and hurricanes are 'natural' but we make every effort to prevent deaths from them, so why not from natural embryo loss? Anyway, you can read the paper by visiting
http://www.amirrorclear.net/academic/papers/index.html
and click on:'The scourge: moral implications of natural embryo loss', American Journal of Bioethics 8(7) 12–19, 2008. Also, perhaps it was on this site, I'm not sure, but Mikhaela Reid has a wonderful cartoon from 2007 ("Egg Rescue Squad: Defending the Right of Microscopic Americans Everywhere!") here:

http://www.mikhaela.net/2007/11/egg-rescue-squad-defending-rights-of.htm...

One of the easiest rules to understand in law is known as the M'Naughton rule, which is what is used to determine sanity. If you literally can't tell the difference between a cabbage and your wife's head and you decide to make yourself a nice coleslaw, the homicide can be forgiven because the alleged killer, even if found guilty, is recognized as unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. It's very basic and easy to understand and you can probably see why so few people use the "insanity plea" successfully. Just about everyone can tell the difference between a cabbage and his wife's head.

Can you tell the difference between something that is obscene and something that is not? A supreme court decision was based on the fact that, for reasons he couldn't readily explain, Potter Stewart could tell the difference when he saw it--this is another example of a simple virtually univerally shared understanding of a word or concept.

Therefore, when I am faced with a person who claims that abortion is murder on the basis that a fetus is a child, I propose that he hold a child in one arm and a fetus in the other just to see if he can tell the difference between the two. If he can't, he's probably insane and needs a caretaker--or, at the very least, some sort of spotting card similar to the ones used by air raid wardens during World War II. These cards were posters with silhouettes of various enemy planes so that when the warden called in a sighting, he could say more than "there's a plane up there" but be able to make some judgment about whether it's a fighter, a bomber, or a transport, whether it was German, Italian, Japanese, or British (later, American), which direction it seemed to be headed, etc. We could print silhouettes of fetuses and children on it, perhaps also a few silhouettes of ova and sperm cells to help the person learn to make this simple distinction. But if the person can't begin to tell the difference after a reasonable period of time, he should probably be adjudicated insane, or provided with a keeper or a room in a facility somewhere to prevent him from turning his wife into coleslaw.

when I am faced with a person who claims that abortion is murder on the basis that a fetus is a child, I propose that he hold a child in one arm and a fetus in the other just to see if he can tell the difference between the two.

Gabby,

If you're going to disagree with someone's opinion it would serve you well not to distort that person's opinion by playing with words.  I shall promise to make every effort to understand what you say, in the way you want it to be understood, and I hope that you will do the same for others.

A child is a human being whose age is between birth and eighteen years.  That's a definition we all understand.  A child is also the offspring of a particular mother and father.  Most of us can tell the meaning of the word by context.  When my mother is asked if she has any children she includes me in the count even though I'm fifty-five.  If she says, "No, I have no children at all -- I only have adults", the person speaking with her will realize she's being light-hearted and humorous.  She would be playing with the word 'child' -- as you did.  The difference is that you weren't being lighthearted. 

Paul Bradford

Pro-Life Catholics for Choice

Jumping back a few comments to Princess Rot's comment about Paul's "Fertility and virility can be a burden, or a tremendous power" (Princess Rot: Paul, having a body that functions correctly is not a 'power') touches on something I've been thinking about lately - and I'm with Mademoiselle Rot on this one. It sometimes feels a little creepy the way the fetus has become a kind of object of worship. It's almost like it's a tiny, weeny god, or at the very least, "man before the fall" or something. So of course how could women not be the ultimate devils in choosing to abort gods and creatures straight out of The Garden. Do any readers know of any good analyses of the whole fetus worship phenomenon? I'd love to read something. I know, I know, humans are soooooo terribly special, which is why other creatures' sexual reproduction isn't in the least bit miraculous or awe-inspiring. That makes women special too, right. Or (for some of us) evil for not treating it with the reverence it deserves. Sigh.

It's not so much my analysis, Paul, re women being cast as devils/evil for having abortions (for killing the demi-god fetus), it is what we are accused of being. One thing you might know about me, since you ask, is that I was screamed and abused and yelled at on my way into a clinic some 20 years ago. I suppose it does color one's perspective ever so slightly of the people wanting to help fetuses. Re the fetus worship, I'm just observing this, and wondering about it. I haven't really engaged in any serious analysis of the language, philosophy etc. behind this aspect of the anti-abortion movement, which is why I asked if anyone knew of any good analyses. I appreciate, by the way, the measured and respectful posts you write. As Emma writes, one frequently has a sense of the fetus as being seen as some kind of demi-god. I noticed this just the other day when reading about a campaign by a right to life group to have, as part of mandatory counseling, women be told that when they have an abortion the procedure (and I quote) "Will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." This particular group has made much of the separateness of the fetus from the woman, and I think that plays into what I see as this "demi-god" (to again use Emma's terminology) aspect. Of course I'm not saying it's the whole story, I don't think any of the commenters who see there's something like this going on think it's the whole story. And, Paul, I know very well it's complicated. Though I actually don't think it should be, because I do focus ("too much" you suggest) on it being a woman's choice.
Also, like Emma, I'm pretty uncomfortable with the statement about abortion not being all about women's "neglect of motherhood". Well, I guess I rather like Emma's entire post, so no need to restate it, probably badly.

Well Paul, we appear to agree that sexually active women have no moral obligation to live their lives as if they are perpetually pregnant. Works for me.