Subject: Why Killing Embryonic Human Beings is Wrong
Source: National Review; July 20, 2001

Reason, Science, & Stem Cells
Why killing embryonic human beings is wrong.
By Patrick Lee & Robert P. George

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: Mr. Lee is associate professor of philosophy at
the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Mr. George is the McCormick
Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.]

At 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.