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 n attempting
to justify the destruction of embryonic human beings to harvest
their stem cells, Ronald
Bailey has, on the one hand, conceded that you and I were once
embryos, and, on the other hand, insisted that human embryos are
not distinct organisms at all. Thus, Bailey has managed to back
himself into the absurd position of suggesting that human beings
at more mature stages of development once existed as embryos but
were, during the embryonic stage, something other than distinct
organisms (and yet has also admitted that we are essentially physical
organisms).
The truth, of course, is that you and I came into existence precisely
at the point at which the distinct human organism that is now you
or I came into existence. It is true to say that each of us was
once an embryo, because the distinct, self-integrating, human, physical
organism that is now you or me is identical to, or continuous with,
the distinct, self-integrating, human organism that was, at earlier
stages of development, an adolescent, a child, an infant, a fetus,
and, at the dawn of his or her life, an embryo. If the embryo were
in fact something other than a distinct, self-integrating organism
— if it were, like sperm cells, ova, or somatic cells, merely
part of another human being — then it would not be correct
to say that you or I were once embryos, any more than it would be
correct to say that you or I were once sperm cells, or ova, or (in
the case of someone who was brought into being by cloning) somatic
cells. So Bailey is right to concede that we were once embryos and
utterly wrong to insist that embryos are not distinct organisms.
Bailey's denial of the fact that embryos are distinct organisms
is meant to support his claim that when we were embryos we were
not "people." We have made two points about this claim.
First, Bailey's argument for it turns out to be philosophical rather
than scientific. It therefore does nothing to fulfill his original
promise to establish as a matter of scientific fact that
human embryos are not human beings. Second, the claim is philosophically
untenable. Either it mistakenly identifies the human person with
something other than the human organism, or it denies that we are
intrinsically worthwhile because of what we are, as opposed to our
properties, states, talents, etc. (and thus deserve the title, "persons").
In our exchanges with Bailey, we have defended the following set
of propositions:
(1) What we are is a human, physical organism.
(2) We are intrinsically worthwhile because of what we are, not
just because of characteristics we acquire at some point in our
life.
(3) Therefore, all human, physical organisms are intrinsically
worthwhile (and hence are "people").
Not only did we present arguments to support (1) and (2), but Bailey
has at different times expressly admitted both of those premises.
When Bailey in his last article claims that, "we know for sure
that people all have human brains," that simply begs the question.
If you once were a human embryo (as Bailey rightly concedes) then
you once existed at a time before you had a brain, just as you existed
before you had permanent teeth (or any teeth for that matter), and
just as you existed before you had lungs. And if you are intrinsically
valuable because of what you are (which Bailey has also conceded),
then an entity which has intrinsic value (and so is a "person")
exists at all times that you exist.
The only colorable ground for saying that a human organism needs
a brain to be a "person" is to claim that one must have
an immediately exercisable capacity for consciousness. When we set
forth reasons for rejecting any such claim, Bailey replied that
we erroneously accused him "of defining human beings
in terms of their being conscious or having mental functions."
But if this is not how Bailey defines human beings, then why does
he think that a human organism must have a brain in order to be
a person? If a whole human being is a person, and does not need
to have an immediately exercisable capacity for consciousness to
be a person, then why are those human individuals at developmental
stages prior to complete brain development not people? (Of course,
the embryo possesses from the start the epigenetic primordia for
brain development and is, indeed, actively developing a brain, just
as he or she is developing all the other bodily organs he or she
will possess at maturity.)
The only alternative is to hold that the embryo or fetus must have
a brain in order to be a distinct organism at all, that prior to
the appearance of the brain (at eight weeks when a complete brain
has developed, or at three weeks when the primitive streak appears,
which is plainly its primordium, or before that, when the cells
appear which also constitute the primordium of the brain?) the embryo
is (somehow) not really a distinct organism. Is this Bailey's position?
If so, it is plainly false. What could the embryo possibly be? He
or she (for the sex is determined from the beginning) is clearly
not a part of the mother, nor a part of the father, nor a stray
cell, nor a mere clump of cells, for this highly organized being
is growing in a definite self-directed manner, toward the more mature
stage of a human organism.
Not being able to maintain consistently that we once were human
organisms but were not people (since at different points he has
conceded each premise of the argument that refutes it), Bailey falls
back on his denial that the human embryo is distinct — a denial
that is manifestly inconsistent with his concession that we once
were human embryos.
The origin of Bailey's errors appears to be his supposition that
the pro-life argument is that human embryos are distinct human beings
merely because each has a distinct genetic code. If this were
the pro-life argument, then the facts of cloning and twinning would
refute it. But, as we have pointed out, it isn't. Everyone knows
that there are various things that, though not human beings, have
a distinct and fully human genetic makeup — a culture in a
petri dish waiting to be tested for strep infection, or a beating
heart on ice awaiting transplantation, for example. (Contrary to
what Bailey implies at the end of his most recent article, such
facts are scarcely "recent scientific discoveries.") The
fact is that having a distinct genetic make-up is sufficient to
prove in most cases that the developing embryo is not a part of
the mother or the father. That still is true for identical twins
or for an embryo who might generate an identical twin from his or
her cells. But it is obviously not sufficient to show, nor does
anyone think that it is sufficient to show, that these embryos are
whole human beings. What does show decisively that embryos are whole
human organisms (and distinct from identical twin siblings, if they
have any, or from donors, if they are clones) is the self-integration
and self-direction of maturation and growth that these embryos actively
maintain; they do not function as parts of larger organisms, but
each functions as a whole organism of the human species, directing
his or her own integral organic functioning.
Bailey has never faced up to our original reply to his argument
that human embryos are no different in value and worth from any
of our somatic cells because somatic cells are like embryos in possessing
a full genetic code. We pointed out that this argument ignores the
massive difference between human embryos and somatic cells: Human
embryos are, and somatic cells are not, whole organisms actively
developing themselves (unless prevented from doing so) to maturation.
Bailey has fallen back on arguing that human embryos are not distinct
organisms because the fact of twinning and the possibility of cloning
disprove any great discontinuity between any of our somatic cells
and human embryos, or between the totipotent cells within an embryo
before he or she twins, and a human embryo. He argues that, "what
we see is a series of proper environments needed for human DNA to
begin the process of embryonic development." So, "there
is a series of proper environments needed for human DNA to begin
the process of embryonic development." What Bailey actually
asks us to believe is that each of our cells, even while it is part
of us and functions as part of the whole organism that we are, is
the same kind of thing, with the same kind of potentiality, as a
whole human embryo, who is directing its own integral organic functioning
and actively developing himself or herself to maturity. If that
were so, then each of our cells already would be a whole organism,
only waiting for the proper environment to begin maturation. But
that is absurd.
The human embryo and each somatic cell are similar in this one
respect: each has the entire human genetic code or information which
could in the right circumstances guide the self-development
of a whole human organism to maturity. But the discontinuity is
undeniable: the human embryo, but not the somatic cell, is actively
making use of that genetic information for its own self-directed
maturation. So, to the argument indicated above, numbered (1) through
(3) we can add:
(4) Biology (and, in particular, the subfield of human embryology)
shows that distinct, whole human organisms come to be when there
is generated a distinct organism actively developing its forces
and elements toward its own more mature stages of development. (This
occurs usually with the fusion of the spermatazoon and the oocyte.
With monozygotic twins, a second distinct organism comes to be with
the extrinsic division of the first embryo that was generated by
fertilization. Finally, in cloning, a new organism comes to be with
the fusion and activation of the chromosomes of a somatic cell with
an enucleated ovum.)
Incidentally, Bailey entirely missed the point of our argument
concerning infant mortality. It is simply this: The high infant-mortality
rates that characterized societies for most of human history provide
no legitimate ground for denying the status of infants as human
beings. By precisely the same token, high rates of early miscarriage
do nothing to disprove the humanity of embryonic human beings.
Bailey's argument in the last paragraph of his most recent salvo
is simply confused. It is obvious, he contends, that unimplanted
embryos are not people because no one tries to rescue them. Yet
some people do try to rescue them, and, as a matter of fact,
that is what we are trying to do just now. Moreover, let us remind
Bailey that the question we are debating is precisely how we should
treat unimplanted embryos. It proves nothing to argue that a class
of human individuals are not persons because others fail to treat
them as persons, and to argue this precisely in a debate where one's
opponents are in fact urging their readers to treat them as persons.
The analogy cannot be avoided: It is like arguing against abolitionists
that slaves are not persons because others fail to treat them as
persons.
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