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On persons, human life and embryos:

Part one

by Simon Longstaff

Since John Lockhart QC delivered his review into embryonic stem cell research to the Federal Government in 2005, recommending that the laws restricting research into spare IVF embryos and allowing scientists to create embryos for the purpose of producing stem cells be changed, politicians have tried to come to grips with the vexed question of whether to lift the ban on therapeutic cloning. Missing from the debate, however, have been discussions about the point at which human life begins. In the first of two articles, Simon Longstaff reflects on this fundamental question.

Given the sophistication of contemporary biotechnology, it would be easy to assume that its application must give rise to novel questions of ethics. In fact, many of the questions raised by modern science have an ancient pedigree. A good example of this can be seen in the debate about whether or not human embryos should be destroyed (or used at all) to derive stem cells. Although often fused (and confused) in debate, there are four primary questions that the ‘stem cell debate’ requires to be considered:

• When does a human life begin?
• How does a human life begin?
• Is a person/what does it mean to be a person?
• When does a person begin?

In principle, the first two of these questions can be answered by science alone. However, the final two questions can only be informed by science – before being decided on other grounds associated with the application of reason and belief.

What these questions do is capture the distinction between the concept of ‘a human life’ and that of ‘persons’. While ‘a human life’ can be understood as a biological category, that of ‘persons’ belongs to the field of ethics. While a link can be established between the two concepts (especially in the commonly held belief that human beings are persons) it is mistaken simply to assume that the concepts are either inter-changeable or equivalent. Yet this mistaken assumption is commonly made – and is the source of much confusion.

This article is an excerpt from a longer piece that addresses each of the questions posed above. In this piece, we will consider the last of the questions posed above.

When does a person begin?

The point at which personhood is believed to commence has moved considerably over time and varies across cultures. For many centuries, the view amongst believers in the three, great monotheistic religions has been that an individual person only comes into being after the birth of a child. That is, it has been held that a child only becomes a ‘person’ when it assumes an identity separate from its mother. Until very recently, this position was reflected in the law of New South Wales – where the death of an unborn child could not give rise to a charge of murder or manslaughter – because the unborn child was not deemed, at law, to be a person (the law has now been changed – according legal personhood to the unborn human foetus). A more recent view is that personhood commences at the same moment human life begins. That is, some argue that a person comes into existence at the moment of conception. In some cultures, the status of ‘person’ is reserved for a later period in life when a child becomes adult – often through a process of initiation. Only then does the adult person really ‘count’.

One of the principal causes of much that is (or has been) heinous in human affairs has been the denial of personhood to some human beings or, on occasions, to whole classes of men and women. Examples include the status of slaves and the depiction of groups of people as ‘sub human’ due to their colour, gender or creed (most infamously the depiction of the Jews throughout much of Western history). This suggests that the conferring (or withdrawal) of the status of ‘person’ has at times been thought to involve a selective application of judgement by one group or individual concerning others.

Indeed, there are examples where a stranger is culturally (or ethically) ‘invisible’ to others, at least until accepted into the bonds relationship. Likewise, the process of banishment (or outlawing) can have the effect of breaking such bonds, stripping an individual of their personhood – with the attendant withdrawal of the protections normally enjoyed by those who bear moral rights such as the right to life.

All of this may suggest that there is no absolute standard for deciding if and when an individual person becomes a person. Indeed, the matter is a complex one. However, when it comes to the issue of the ethical status of embryonic stem cell research, perhaps the more important question to ask is this: when is it not possible for a human life to be a person?

It is here that scientific knowledge has some bearing on the question of the potential status of embryos as persons. In ethical reflection, one of the essential requirements is to attend to those facts about a case that can be known and that are relevant to our consideration. In this case, our knowledge of the process by which embryos develop, particularly at the earliest stage, is of great importance. This knowledge was not available to those who first sought to determine the ethical status of embryos. Instead, relying on reason alone, it was argued that the unbroken identity of the embryo, resulting child and subsequent adult must mean that the status of ‘personhood’ should be conferred on an embryo from the moment of conception.

What science has since revealed is that the core premise of ‘unbroken identity’, on which this argument relies, is false. Now that we can observe the earliest stages of embryonic development, we can observe that there is a brief period of time when the embryo has no clear identity that can be linked to subsequent personhood. The first issue to consider is that a single embryo can spontaneously give rise to more than one foetus through the process of twinning. At the earliest stage of development, prior to any differentiation in the cells that make up the embryo, it is impossible to tell which of those cells might develop into foetal or placental tissue – let alone the various types of tissue that must be formed in order for a healthy foetus to develop.

For those who link personhood to the capacity of a being to form preferences (as will some Utilitarians), an early stage embryo where the cells have not differentiated cannot be a person. This is because such an embryo will not possess even the most rudimentary biological apparatus for forming preferences.

The issue of identity and personhood becomes even more challenging when religious doctrinal issues are added to those of biology. One example should make the point. The Roman philosopher and Christian martyr, Boethius, argued that a person only comes into existence when an immaterial soul forms part of a ‘composite’ with the material human being. Boethius says that a:

Person is an individual substance of rational nature. As individual it is material, since matter supplies the principle of individuation. The soul is not person, only the composite is. Man alone is among the material beings person, he alone having a rational nature. He is the highest of the material beings, endowed with particular dignity and rights.(1)

Indeed, the process and timing of ‘rational ensoulment’ (sometimes called hominisation) has been the subject of continuing debate for centuries. In medieval times, the theologian and philosopher, St Thomas Aquinas, argued in support of ‘delayed’ ensoulment. That is, he advanced the view that a soul enters the material body, to form a human being, only after the foetus becomes animated. It is only then that a ‘person’, in the sense described above, is said to exist. More modern theologians have tended to argue that ensoulment occurs at the point of conception. Aquinas is said to have reached his erroneous position out of ignorance of the biological processes initiated at the point of conception. My argument is that further scientific knowledge now suggests that this cannot be so. Ensoulment cannot take place before the moment when an embryo has developed to the point where human identity (even in its most primitive form) can be distinguished from the means for sustaining its development. This does not occur until some days after conception.

One objection to the argument that ensoulment (hominisation) cannot occur before a certain point in the development of an embryo might be that the process is automatically associated with the act of conception. That is, it could be argued that fertilisation of a human egg necessarily causes a soul to be formed and thus brings into existence a person. Such a claim is contrary to most religious traditions – and certainly is at odds with influential positions such as that espoused by the Catholic Church. Section 366 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that:

The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God – it is not ‘produced’ by the parents – and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.(2)

That is, the belief and teaching of the Catholic Church is that God, as an omnipotent and omniscient being, attends personally to the creation of every soul and its infusion into the biological matter that initially constitutes human life. In doing so, it is argued that God causes a person to emerge out of human life. The corollary of this argument is that God could choose not to create and infuse a soul at a particular time or in particular circumstances. Being omnipotent, God is free to choose in such matters and certainly is not bound by the biological fact of conception.

Given what we now know about the process of embryonic development after fertilisation, and especially the time it takes for cells to begin the process of differentiation, perhaps St Thomas Aquinas was correct after all. With an understanding of the science, for those who believe that God ‘wills’ a soul into existence, it may make better sense to talk of delayed ensoulment – with the delay being until the possibility of identity has been established.

As a side note, one might ask if every act of conception need not necessarily be accompanied by ensoulment, then would a benevolent God would infuse a soul into every embryo – irrespective of its chances of survival? As noted above, a significant percentage of fertilised eggs fail ever to implant in the womb – or perish near the start of their development. Why would a benevolent, omniscient being infuse a soul into an embryo that it knows will exist for only a few hours or a few days? What might be the point of this? Is it possible (or even more, likely) that such a being would exercise discretion in such matters?

The status of a human life (when it is not a person)

If, in the earliest stages of development, a human embryo may be classed as ‘a human life’ without being a ‘person’ then how should it be regarded and treated? For a start, the destruction of an embryo that is not a person cannot and should not be equated to homicide. Not being a person, an undifferentiated embryo does not possess a moral right to life. Likewise, one cannot invoke the core ethical principle of ‘respect for persons’. Amongst other things, this principle requires that no person be used merely as a means to some other end. The use of undifferentiated embryos for research, or other purposes, cannot violate this principle.

On this analysis, the only basis for objecting to destructive research involving undifferentiated embryos would be that human life, rather than the human person, is sacred. This could be argued in the same way that some argue that all life is ‘sacred’. However, it needs to be understood that, in most cases, the claim that something is ‘sacred’ does not mean that it cannot be used for some other legitimate end. Rather, what is required is a certain kind of regard for the thing being used. For example, in traditional, indigenous societies, sacred animals (with whom human beings stand in an equal relationship) may be hunted for food and/or other functional purposes. However, hunters will approach the task of killing such an animal with a reverence for its life and for the spirit of the animal to be taken. This example in not meant to imply that undifferentiated human embryos should be regarded as having the same ethical status as animals (sacred or otherwise). The point to be made is that there is no ethical prohibition on using something that is ‘sacred’ but not a person – providing only that this is done with a proper regard for that which is used.

Further discussion of this topic appeared in the following issue of Living Ethics.

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