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 atrick
Lee and Robert P. George claim
that my arguments for the morality of using stem cells derived
from human embryos to treat patients have "collapsed"
in the face of their analysis. Let's review briefly what this exchange
has been about. The central question is are embryos, from which
stem cells derived, are people? If they are people then they have
intrinsic moral worth and it would be evil to kill them for the
purpose of benefiting other people.
First, in characteristic
move, Lee and George claim that I have "shifted" my arguments
when in fact what I have done in each article is marshal additional
evidence to show that embryos are not people. In their latest critique,
they erroneously insist that I am defining human beings in terms
of their being conscious or having "mental functions."
Weirdly, Lee and George apparently think the fact that the brain
dead no longer have thoughts, memories, emotions, or intentions,
is a philosophical claim — actually it's just a medical fact. I
cited the example of brain death simply to point out that the brain
dead are not people and that we do therefore find it morally laudable
to use their still living organs, donated either by prior bequest
or by consent of next of kin, to cure patients. The brain dead don't
have functioning brains, therefore they are not people. Embryos
consisting on 100 or so undifferentiated cells, don't have brains,
therefore they also are not people. The bright moral line is the
presence or absence of a more or less working brain.
In their most
recent installment in our ongoing discussion, Lee and George turn
to embryology textbooks seeking support for their argument that
embryos are human embryos. Well yes, they certainly do find that
the textbooks declare human embryos to be human embryos, they clearly
aren't dog embryos or cat embryos. However, what we are trying to
determine is whether or not human embryos are people. It is assuredly
the case that human DNA is required for an entity to qualify, but
clearly that is not sufficient since every skin cell, every nerve
cell, nearly all cells in your body contains human DNA which is
why we look for additional criteria for defining people.
So, again,
another thing we know for sure is that people all have human brains.
So a test suggests itself, if beings have a more or less functioning
("more or less" because with regard to the possibility
of doing evil, we want to err on the side of caution) human brains,
then we have identified people. Conversely, if an they do not have
more or less functioning human brains, then they are not people.
It is also
curious that Lee and George are now citing embryology texts as though
they were somehow analogous to the eternal verity of scripture,
when the point of the discussion is that those texts are being revised
in light of new scientific information, in particular in light of
cloning which logically, if not yet logistically, could turn every
cell in your body into your twin. Of course, new scientific information
is not dispositive, but surely in this case it sheds light on the
moral questions with which we must grapple.
In their latest
critique, Lee and George assert that they have "argued that
human beings have intrinsic, and not merely instrumental, value.
Each of us has worth because of what we are, not because
of the properties or states that we happen to instantiate."
Where's the argument — I agree. Despite their mischaracterization
of my arguments, we are not arguing over "properties or states
that we happen to instantiate" we are arguing over whether
embryos are people or not. To reiterate, people must have functioning
brains, they are not just entities containing human DNA.
Lee and George
assert that "[p]eople do not acquire worth, dignity, and basic
rights only after coming to be." Agreed. People have worth,
dignity, and basic rights, however, embryos aren't people.
Lee and George
achieve an apogee in twisted logic when they falsely claim that
I said in my most recent discussion that identical twins were not
distinct individuals because they have the same genomes. Of course
they are distinct — that is why I brought twins up in the first
place. Lee and George completely miss, ignore, or misunderstand
the point that identical twins prove that being distinct individuals
does not depend on having the same genetic makeup, being distinct
has everything to do with having separate brains. I'm sure that
they must know this and so conclude that somehow they misread my
arguments.
Using interesting
and telling bits of word play, Lee and George, try to slur over
the inconvenient facts that identical twins and chimeric indviduals
undermine their arguments for the distinctness of embryos. They
suggest in twinning "another distinct, living human individual
is generated from the cells of an already extant embryonic human
being, through extrinsic division." But doesn't "distinct"
mean different, separate? Monozygotic twinning shows embryos are
at some stage not "distinct" individuals, they can become
two individuals at some later stage. Even more interesting is their
strange characterization of what happens when two embryos combine
in a womb to form one individual. They write "one twin dies
and his cells become part of the other twin." Died? No, neither
ceased living. What happens is that allegedly "distinct"
embryos join into one individual.
Lee and George
persist in trying to draw artificial lines in what is now known
to be a continuum of potential development. Any human cell could,
when combined with factors from egg cytoplasm, begin the process
of embryonic development. It is true that it takes the "proper
environment," as Lee and George say, for an embryo to develop,
but it's also true that all it takes for any human cell to begin
the process of develop is the proper environment and one of the
necessary proper environments is egg cytoplasm. Lee and George in
order to try to get around the problem that human DNA in the proper
environment begins embryonic development, engage in a bit of verbal
slight of hand, by redefining egg cytoplasm as a "co-principle"
which is incorporated into the growing cell. If it's a co-principle,
runs their argument, then it can't be environment. (I don't know
for sure, but I doubt that standard embryology texts have much to
say about such "co-principles.") Environment generally
means "that which surrounds" — human DNA surrounded by
egg cytoplasm begins embryonic development. So what we see is that
there is a series of proper environments needed for human DNA to
begin the process of embryonic development. Any one of them being
absent, development fails.
Finally, Lee
and George quibble over whether an estimate that I cited that as
many as 80% of embryos naturally do not implant is too high. (See
O'Rahilly R, Müller F. Human Embryology & Teratology.
New York, NY: Wiley-Liss; 1992:56 for the 80% estimate.) Instead,
they prefer to cite 45% as the "standard" estimate. Fine.
Then they suggest that half of those are "the results of incomplete
fertilizations." Again, fine. The plain fact is still that
millions of viable embryos each year produced via normal conception
still fail to implant and are shed in women's normal menstrual flow.
Thus I asked in my earlier response: "Given Lee and Patrick's
insistence that every embryo is "already a human being,"
does that mean that if we could detect unimplanted embryos as they
leave the womb, we would then have a duty to rescue them and try
to implant them anyway? Furthermore, do we mourn the deaths of these
millions of embryos as we would the death of child?"
In reply, Lee
and George strangely call our attention to the high infant death
rate of past centuries. First, I remind readers we are not talking
about infants, infants are people and even in past scientifically
bereft centuries, they were people. Second, I believe that in past
centuries the deaths of infants were mourned. Maybe what Lee and
George are suggesting is that since we have a duty to rescue infants,
then we do have a duty to rescue normal 5-day-old unimplanted embryos.
If that's the case, why don't they just say so instead of hinting
coyly at that conclusion? Perhaps because they know that if people
actually think about that proposition a bit, that they will reasonably
conclude that embryos are not people. The fact is that we do not
rescue unimplanted embryos, nor mourn them because we do know that
they are not people.
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