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the heart of the debate over federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell
research is the question whether human embryos are human beings.
Perhaps the most plausible argument that they are not takes the
form of a reductio ad absurdum. Ronald Bailey, science editor
of Reason magazine, argues that the possibility of cloning
human beings from ordinary somatic cells, such as the skin cells
millions of which each of us rubs or washes off our bodies on any
given day, means that human embryos are no different in substance
and value from such cells. But nobody maintains that skin cells
are human beings; therefore it is an error, Bailey concludes, to
suppose that embryos are human beings. We need be no more concerned
about destroying embryos than we are about shedding skin cells.
Bailey's article is entitled "Are
Stem Cells Babies?" The title itself is fallacious. No one claims
that stem cells are human beings (or "babies"). Rather, human
embryos, from whom stem cells are sometimes obtained, are living,
albeit very young, human beings. What has been proposed is the obtaining
of stem cells by dissecting these living human beings. We object,
not to the use of stem cells as such (which can be obtained elsewhere,
without killing), but to the dismemberment of live human beings
as a means to obtain them.
Bailey argues that each of our own cells has as much potential for
development as any human embryo. He notes that cloning has shown
that each of our cells has the genetic information necessary for
producing an entire human embryo, when joined to an enucleated (nucleus
removed) ovum and placed in the right environment. Each cell (Bailey
notes) has the entire DNA code; it has become specialized (as muscle,
skin, etc.) by most of that code being turned off. In cloning,
those portions of the code previously de-activated are re-activated.
Bailey quotes Australian 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."
Bailey's argument fails because his proposed analogy between somatic
cells and human embryos is false. The analogy is false for two reasons.
First, the kind of potentiality possessed by each of our cells differs
profoundly from the potentiality of the human embryo. In the case
of somatic cells, each has a potential only in the sense that something
can be done to it so that its constituents (its DNA molecules) enter
into a distinct whole human organism (which is a person). In the
case of the human embryo, he or she already has the potential to
actively develop himself or herself to the further stages
of maturity of the same kind of organism he or she already is.
True, the whole genetic code is present in each somatic cell, and
this code can be used for guidance of the growth of a new entire
organism. But this point does nothing to show that its potentiality
is the same as that of a human embryo. In cloning, the nucleus of
an ovum is removed and a somatic cell is placed in the remainder
of the ovum and given an electrical stimulus. Such acts do much
more than bring out the latent potentialities of a cell, or merely
place a cell in a new environment. The somatic cell is unable to
produce a new embryo by itself, but must work together with an enucleated
ovum; unlike a new embryo, it needs more than just the right environment
to develop to a mature stage of a human being.
A change in environment is merely external. But the result of cloning
is an entirely new organism: There is an internal change in the
kind of thing present. The evidence for this is the entirely new
direction of its activities and reactions. Thus, the relevant potentiality
of somatic cells is merely that their genetic materials can be used,
in conjunction with an enucleated ovum, to generate an embryonic
human being. But the potentiality of the human embryo, like that
of the human infant, is precisely the potentiality to mature
as the kind of being it already is — a human being.
Somatic cells, in the context of cloning, are analogous, not to
embryos, but to gametes (sperm and egg). Just as a person who comes
into being as a result of the union of gametes was never a sperm
or an egg, a person who is brought into being by a process of cloning
was never a somatic cell. But you and I truly were once embryos,
just as we were once fetuses, infants, and adolescents. These are
merely stages in the development of the enduring organism —
the human being — we are.
Bailey may be running into some confusion because the fact that
a human embryo has a complete human genetic code in each of his
or her cells is part of the proof that he or she is a distinct
human being. But it is only part: the other evidence is that its
genetic code is distinct from that of the mother, it is growing
and developing by virtue its own direction, the direction of this
growth is the mature stage of a human being, and so on. In other
words, having the entire human genetic code shows that an entity
is human, but other facts show that the human embryo is distinct
(distinct from any cell of its mother or father). And still other
facts show that it is whole (not functionally a part of a larger
organism), a self-integrating member of the human species.
The second reason why Bailey's analogy is false is that it ignores
the most obvious difference between any of our cells and a living
human embryo, a difference that is crucial for discerning how they
should be treated. Each of our cells is a mere part of a larger
organism; but the embryo is himself or herself a complete, though
immature, organism. Somatic cells are not, and embryonic human beings
are, distinct, self-integrating organisms capable of directing their
own maturation as members of the human species.
In fact, Bailey's argument from the possibility of cloning amounts
to a red herring. Cloning shows only that human beings can be produced
asexually, something we already knew with identical twins (the second
twin comes to be with the splitting of the original embryo, which
occurs in about 1 in 270 live births).
Scientists, science writers, philosophers, and others involved in
the debate over embryonic-stem-cell harvesting hold various views
of the ethics of embryo destruction. The facts of science, however,
are clear: Human embryos are not mere clumps of cells, but are living,
distinct human organisms, the same as you and I were at earlier
stages of our lives. With the fusion of sperm and ovum, or with
the coming to be of a distinct and complete (though immature) human
organism either by (identical) twinning or by cloning, there is
present a distinct organism which will (unless prevented) actively
develop himself or herself to a more mature stage as a member of
the human species. This new organism directs its own growth, coordinating
from within all of its elements and forces toward his or her own
survival and maturation.
It will not do to say that these are human beings but not "persons."
You and I are essentially human, physical organisms. That is, we
do not have organisms; we are rational, animal organisms.
Therefore, we — that is, the persons we are — come to
be precisely when the animal-organisms we are come to be. The human
person is a bodily entity — not a mere consciousness using
a body — and so the human person comes to be at conception.
Nor will it do to say that the individual that you are did come
to be at conception but that you became valuable, or deserving of
respect, only much later in your duration. You yourself and I myself
are intrinsically valuable, not mere carriers or vehicles for what
is intrinsically valuable (such as pleasant or interesting experiences).
For, if we were mere carriers or vehicles of what is intrinsically
valuable, it always would be permissible to kill one child provided
people agreed to replace him or her with two others. But that is
ludicrous. Therefore, persons, at whatever age or condition, are
valuable simply by virtue of being persons, that is, things that
have the basic capacity to shape their own lives, even if it may
take them some time to develop that capacity, or even if some defect
blocks the actualization of that capacity. All persons, of whatever
race, sex, nationality, or age, are deserving of full respect, and
none should be treated as mere means for use — for example,
dissected for their body parts — by stronger persons.
Finally, the pro-life position is widely reported (even by some
not hostile to it) as being opposed to stem-cell research because
human embryos "are life." This is inaccurate. They are not just
"life," or even human life, but distinct, individual, living members
of the human species, just as you and I were at an earlier stage
of our lives. The proposal to dissect these individuals for their
spare parts — and to implicate all of us in this injustice
by publicly funding and promoting it — is grotesquely immoral.
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