The Pro-Life Argument from Substantial Identity

(St. Anselm’s College, November 14, 2002)

                             Patrick Lee

The way the issue of abortion is presented in television and major news magazines, one might get the impression that this is another example of the clash between science and religion.  One might get the impression that science is on the side of the secular people who say that human embryos are just so much mass of tissue or mere bundles of cells, while the pro-life people hold their position only because of religious reasons, perhaps because they hold as a religious dogma that God infuses a soul at conception. 

Again, the way the issue is presented in the major media, one might get the impression that the problem arises only because conservative religious people believe that human embryos have spiritual souls, whereas those on the other side stick strictly to what science establishes.  Well, the actual truth is very different.  First, I will show that science is completely on the side of the pro-life side, and the more scientific facts we discover about the gestation of human embryos, the more evidence there is for the proposition that these human embryos are distinct, individual, whole human beings.  And as for the body soul issue, the actual truth is almost the exact reverse of what many might think.  While Christians and Jews do believe that human beings have spiritual souls, that is simply not the issue in the debate about the status of human embryos.  Rather, the important point is that human beings have bodies—for it is the pro-abortion side, not the pro-life side, that often implicitly identifies the human person with a pure consciousness, with something other than the bodily self that you and I are. In sum, what I would like to show tonight is primarily two points:  1) science is on the side of the pro-life side, and 2) a correct view of the human person as bodily being, a certain kind of physical organism, instead of a purely spiritual soul or pure consciousness inhabiting a body, leads to the position that you and I once were human embryos, and that human embryos are persons at an immature stage of development. 

 

Let me first set out the basic pro-life argument in very brief form, in just 6 steps. Here is the basic argument:

 

1.      You and I are intrinsically valuable.

2.      You and I are intrinsically valuable (in the sense of being subjects of rights) in virtue of what we are.

3.      What we are are human physical organisms. (That is: you and I are essentially human physical organisms.) 

4.      But human physical organisms come to be at conception.

5.      So, what we are comes to be at conception. (from 3 and 4) (You and I came to be at conception.

6.      So, what is intrinsically valuable (as a subject of rights) comes to be at conception. (from 2 and 5) 

 

A shorter version: 

What is intrinsically valuable is what we are.

What we are are human physical organisms.

Human physical organisms come to be at conception

Therefore, what is intrinsically valuable comes to be at conception. 

 

Now, I would like to go back through that argument step by step, give support for each step, and consider some possible objections to these steps.

 

I. HUMAN PHYSICAL ORGANISMS COME TO BE AT CONCEPTION (OR AT CLONING SHOULD A HUMAN EVER BE CLONED) 

 

As I said, many people have the impression that this is a science vs. religion issue. It must be some Catholic or conservative Christian dogma that these tiny embryos are actually human beings.  However, the fact of the matter is that science is on our side.  It’s the other side that is trying to set aside what every standard embryology text has said clearly for at least the last fifty years.  The fact is that the standard embryology texts all state clearly that in normal cases the beginning of a distinct human organism or human individual occurs with the fusion of the pronuclei of the sperm and the oocyte, producing the zygote.  (See, for example,  the embryology texts of:  Moore and Persaud, O’Rahilly, Larsen, Carlsen, and Gilbert.)

The evidence for this is really overwhelming so I will just sketch only some of it here.  Let me also add that in identical twinning a second human organism is generated with the splitting off of part of the original embryo.  And if humans are ever cloned, a new human organism will be generated with the fusion, and activation (partly by electrical stimulus) of the nucleus of a somatic cell and the cytoplasm of an ovum.   The point is that whenever there is produced a distinct zygote, an individual, distinct organism with all of the internal resources needed to actively develop itself to the mature stage of a human being—whether that occurs by fertilization or by twinning or by cloning—when that occurs there exists a distinct and complete, though immature member of the species homo sapiens.  

 

We need to consider some of the facts of sexual reproduction. The biological evidence clearly shows that a new organism of the relevant mammalian species is generated with the completion of the fertilization process. In normal conception a sex cell of the father, a sperm, unites with a sex cell of the mother, an ovum.  Within the chromosomes of these sex cells are the DNA molecules which constitute the information which will guide the development of  the new individual resulting from the fusion of the sperm and the ovum.  When fertilization  occurs a sperm unites with an ovum, and  the twenty‑three chromosomes of the sperm unite with the twenty‑three chromosomes of the ovum, and a new cell is produced  that is genetically distinct from the cells either of the mother or of the father. Moreover, the direction of its growth and the orientation of its homeostatic operations—the maintenance of a constant temperature, pressure, salt and potassium levels—is distinct from that of the mother in whose body this distinct organism resides. 

Clearly, the gametes—that is, the sperm and the ovum, that is, the sex cells which produce a new organism, the zygote, when they fuse—these gametes are not whole organisms.  They are not only genetically but also functionally identifiable as parts of the male or female potential parents.  Each has only half the genetic material needed to guide the development of an immature human toward full maturity, and none of these cells will survive long.  They clearly are destined either to combine with an ovum or sperm or die.  Even when they succeed in causing fertilization, they do not survive; rather, their genetic material enters into the composition of a distinct, new organism. 

But none of this is true of the human embryo, from the zygote and blastula stages onward. The combining of the chromosomes of the sperm and of the ovum generates what every authority in human embryology identifies as a new and distinct organism.  Whether produced by fertilization or by cloning, if humans are ever cloned, the human embryo possesses all of the genetic material needed to inform and organize its growth.  And, what is most significant, unless deprived of a suitable environment or prevented by accident or disease, this embryo will actively develop itself in its own distinct direction, toward its own survival and growth. The direction of its growth is not extrinsically determined, but is in accord with the genetic information within it. The human embryo is, then, a whole (though immature) and distinct human organism—a human being.

If the embryo were not a complete organism, then what could it be?  It has been shown that it is not a part of the mother or of the father, unlike the sperm cells and the ova.  Nor is it a disordered growth such as a hydatidiform mole or teratoma.  These do not have the internal resources to actively develop themselves to the mature stage of a human.  Perhaps someone will say that the early embryo is an intermediate form, something which regularly emerges into a whole (though immature) human organism but is not one yet.  But what could cause the emergence, and cause it with regularity?  It is clear that after fertilization (or activation occurring in cloning) the major development of this organism is controlled and directed from within, that is, by the multicellular organism itself.  So, after fertilization or cloning, no event or series of events occur which could be construed as the production of a new organism; that is, nothing extrinsic to the developing organism itself acts on it to produce a new character or new direction in development.  Rather, the growth is continuous and internally directed; thus, no substantial change (change producing a new kind of entity) occurs. 

That is, the generation of a new substantial entity must be caused either by another substantial entity (or substantial entities) like it, or by the combination of several substantial entities to produce a new substantial entity distinct from any of those components.  Such an event obviously does occur at fertilization, where the sperm and the ovum combine to produce a third substantial entity distinct from both.  Also, such an event occurs with cloning, for the fusion of the chromosomes of a somatic cell with the cytoplasm of an ovum, and the addition of an electrical impulse, produces a zygote, an entity which, just as every other zygote, will actively develop itself to the mature stage of a human, if provided suitable environment and not prevented by accident or disease.  But no event remotely similar to these events, no event which could reasonably be interpreted as the generation of a new substantial entity, occurs thereafter.  Nutrition and oxygen are taken in, but what is done with this nutrition and oxygen is determined from within the embryo; the nutrition and oxygen only facilitate the progression of a series of process and changes—homeostasis and growth—whose sequence is set by the internal genetic structure of the developing organism itself. 

Fertilization generates a new human organism, for it produces a distinct organism with the active propensity, or ability from within (as opposed to an ability acquired by an extrinsic change), to develop itself in accord with its own genetic information.  Cloning produces the same result by combining what is normally combined and activated in fertilization, that is, the full genetic code plus the ovular cytoplasm.  So, just as fertilization produces a new and complete, though immature, human organism, the same is true of cloning.   In short:

 

(1)   Every entity which has the intrinsic active capacity to direct its growth and development to the mature stage of a member of the human species, and would do so unless prevented by disease or accident,  is a complete (though perhaps immature) human organism. 

(2)   The human embryo, from the zygote stage on, whether produced by fertilization or by cloning, has such an intrinsic active capacity. 

(3)   Therefore, the human embryo, from the zygote stage on, whether produced by fertilization or by cloning, is a complete (though immature) human organism.

 

II. We are Essentially Human Physical Organisms

 

            This is step #2 in our overall argument. 

Perhaps the most popular argument to deny the intrinsic value of human embryos is the “no-person argument.”  According to this argument, the human embryo or fetus is a human being, a human organism, but it is not a person.  The argument is that only persons deserve moral respect; that is, only persons are intrinsically worthwhile, are the sorts of things we should not kill, are entities whose interests we should take account of.  But human embryos or fetuses, according to this argument, are not persons. 

            Sometimes it is argued that human embryos are not persons because human embryos do not have mental functions.  Thus, Mary Anne Warren, for example, argued that in order to be a person, an entity must have consciousness, self-motivated activity, the capacity to communicate an indefinite variety of types of messages, or the presence of self-concepts. [1]   Michael Tooley argued that in order to be a person, an entity must have

self-consciousness, in the sense of having a concept of oneself as a continuing subject of experiences. [2]   They then concluded that, because human embryos have none of these mental functions, human embryos are not persons.  

            Such arguments of course have some plausibility.  It seems obvious that it is morally permissible to kill some things (such as lettuce, vicious dogs) but not others.  Where does one draw the line between those things it is permissible to destroy or kill, and those it is not?  A long tradition says that the line should be drawn at persons.  But what is a person, if not a thing which has self-consciousness, rationality, and the ability consciously to direct his own life?

[re infants, comatose?]

            However, this argument is gravely mistaken.  It implicitly identifies the human person with a concsiousness which uses or inhabits a body, whereas in fact we human persons are particular kinds of physical organisms.  Their argument is that, yes, the human organism comes to be at conception, but you and I, the human person, comes to be only much later, say, when something with self-consciousness appears. But if this human organism came to be at one time, but I came to be at a later time, it follows that I am one thing and this human organism is another thing.

We are not consciousnesses that possess or inhabit bodies.  Rather, we are living bodily entities.  First, I think that we have, at least on one level, an immediate awareness of the truth that we are living bodies.  When I take a shower I say that I am washing myself.  If you strike my face I do not say, “You hit my body,” but:  “Why did you hit me?”  If while walking past a vase on a coffee-table I accidentally knock it to the floor and it shatters, I do not say, “My body did that,” but:  “I am so sorry, I accidentally broke your vase.” 

            Second, we can see that you and I are physical organisms by examining the kinds of actions that must be attributed to us.  So, if a thing performs bodily actions, then it is a body.  If a living thing performs bodily actions, then it is a physical organism.  Now, those who want to deny that we are physical organisms think of themselves, what each of them refers to as “I”, as the subject of acts of understanding and willing, that is, what many philosophers, myself included, would say are non-physical acts.  Now here’s the argument:  First, sensation is a bodily action.  The act of seeing, for example, is an act that an animal performs with his eyeballs and his optic nerve, just as the act of walking is an act that he performs with his legs. But, secondly, it is clear in the case of human individuals that it has to be the same thing, the same single subject of actions, that performs the act of sensing and that performs the act of understanding.  (And remember, it is the subject of acts of understanding that everyone, including those who deny that they are bodily entities, refers to as “I”.)  When I know, for example, that That is a tree, it is by my understanding, or an intellectual act, that I apprehend what is meant by "tree" apprehending what it is (at least in a general way).  But the subject of that proposition, what I refer to by the word "That," is apprehended by sensation or perception.  What one means by "That" is precisely that which is perceptually present to one. But, clearly, it must be the same thing—the same I—which apprehends the predicate and the subject of a unitary judgment.  So, it is the same thing, the same agent, which understands and which senses or perceives.  Thus, what each of us refers to as “I” is identically the physical organism which is the subject both of bodily actions such as perceiving, and of nonphysical actions, such as understanding.  Hence the thing that I am, and the thing that you are—what you and I refer to by the personal pronouns “you” and “I”—is in each case a human, physical organism (but also with nonphysical capacities). [3] Therefore, since you and I are essentially physical organisms, we came to be at conception, we once were embryos, then fetuses, then infants, and so on.

            So, how should we use the word “person”?  Are human embryos persons or not?             

Well, people may stipulate different meanings for the word “person”, but I think it is clear that what we normally mean by the word “person” is that entity that is referred to by personal pronouns –“I” “you” “he” “she” and so on.  And I would say that the following is what we should present as explicating the meaning of the word “person”:   A person is:  a subject with the natural capacity to reason and make free choices.  But that subject, in the case of human beings, is identical with the human organism, and therefore that subject comes to be when the organism comes to be, even though it will take her several months to actualize the natural capacities to reason and make free choices, natural capacities which are already present.

 

III. We are Intrinsically Valuable in Virtue of What We Are.  What is valuable is what we are.

 

            Another attempt to deny the intrinsic value of human embryos is to deny Step 3 in the argument I gave above.   This attempt concedes that you and I once were human embryos, and so proponents of this view do not identify the self or the person with a non-physical consciousness.  What they say is that “person” is an accidental attribute.  That is, it is similar to “basketball player.”  Just as you come to be at one time, but become a basketball player only much later, so, they say, you and I came to be when these physical organisms came to be, but we became persons only at some time later. [4]   Thus, unlike the first objectors, they admit that you and I once existed in our mothers’ wombs.  They admit that the thing referred to by “I” or “you” is a physical organism.  What they deny is that this entity was intrinsically valuable at every stage of its duration.  On Tooley’s view I am not the same entity as the physical organism that once existed in my mother’s womb. According to Tooley, one thing came to be at conception, and a distinct thing came to be much later.  But, according to Thomson, Dworkin and others, you and I did come to be in our mothers’ wombs, but we became intrinsically valuable only at a later time.  We could express the difference between the two positions this way:  The first objectors disagree with the pro-life position on an ontological issue, that is, on what kind of thing the unborn human embryo or fetus is.  This second objection disagrees with the pro-life position on an evaluative, or ethical, position.

Judith Thomson argues for this position by comparing  the right to life with the right to vote.  Thomson argues that,  “If children are allowed to develop normally they will have a right to vote; that does not show that they now have a right to vote.”  So, according to this position, it is true that we once were embryos and fetuses, but they argue that we came to be at one point, but then acquired the right to life only much later during our life. [5]

            My reply is as follows.  First of all, The comparison between voting rights and the right to life is relevant only if one assumes that all rights are of the same sort, which is simply not true.  Some rights vary with respect to place, circumstances, and talents; other rights do not.  We recognize that one’s right to life does not vary with place, as does one’s right to vote.  Moreover, some rights and entitlements accrue to individuals only at certain times, places, or situations, but surely others do not.  The basic right to life is the same as having moral status at all, that is, being the sort of entity that can have rights or entitlements to begin with.  And so it is to be expected that this right would differ in further, and fundamental ways, from other rights, such as a right to vote.  In particular, it is reasonable to expect that having moral status at all, as opposed to having a right to perform this or that type of action in this or that type of situation, should be based on the type of thing (or substantial entity) something is.  And so, just as this right does not vary with respect to place or situation, so it does not accrue to someone because of an acquired skill or disposition.  Rather, this right belongs to a person, a substantial entity, at all times that she exists, not just during certain stages of her existence, or in certain circumstances, or in virtue of additional, accidental attributes.

            Secondly I reply that we are intrinsically valuable in virtue of what we are, not of in virtue of some attribute that we acquire some time after we have come to be.  Well, obviously,  proponents of this view cannot maintain that the accidental attribute required to be intrinsically valuable (additional to being a human individual) is an act or an actual behavior.  They of course do not wish to exclude from personhood people who are asleep or in reversible comas.  So, the additional attribute will have to be a capacity or potentiality of some sort.  Thus, they will have to concede that sleeping or reversibly comatose human beings will be persons because they have the potentiality or capacity for mental functions. 

            But there is a sense in which human embryos and fetuses also have a capacity or potentiality for such mental functions as soon as they come to be.  Human embryos and fetuses cannot of course immediately perform such acts.  Still, they are related to such acts differently than, say, a canine or feline embryo is.  They are members of a natural kind—a biological species—whose members, if not prevented by extrinsic causes, in due course develop the immediately exercisable capacity for mental functions. The fact that they do shows that members of this species come to be with whatever it takes to develop that immediately exercisable capacity, and that only the adverse effects on them of other causes will prevent it.  So, from the moment they come to be they have within themselves the internal resources necessary to actively develop themselves to the point where they will perform such acts. [6]

            So, we must distinguish two sorts of capacity or potentiality for mental functions that a substantial entity might possess:  first, an immediately exercisable capacity, that is, one that the entity will immediately perform in response to a stimulus; [7] second, a capacity to develop oneself to the point where one does perform such actions. [8]   But on what basis can one require the first sort of potentiality—as do proponents of this second objection—which is an accidental attribute, and not just the first, which is possessed as part of what one is?

There are, at least, two reasons against requiring the first sort of capacity.  First, the difference between these two types of potentiality or capacity is merely a difference between stages along a continuum.  The more proximate capacity for higher mental functions is only the development of an underlying potentiality that the entity has simply because it is the kind of thing it is.  The capacities for reasoning and making free choices are gradually developed, or brought towards maturation, through gestation, childhood, adolescence, and so on.  But the difference between a person and a non-person, or that which has value as a subject of rights and that which does not, cannot consist only in the fact that, while both have some feature, one has more of it than the other.  A mere quantitative difference (having more or less of the same feature, such as the development of a natural capacity) cannot by itself be the basis for why we should treat different entities in radically different ways. [9]  Between the ovum and the approaching thousands of sperm on the one hand and the embryonic human being on the other hand, there is a clear difference in kind.  But between the embryonic human being and that same human being at any stage of her maturation, there is only a difference in degree.

A second reason against holding that personhood is, or is grounded in, an accidental attribute, is as follows.  Being a certain kind of thing, that is, having a specific type of substantial nature, is an either/or matter—a thing either is or is not a human being.  But the accidental qualities that could be proposed as criteria for personhood come in varying and continuous degrees:  there is an infinite number of degrees of the relevant developed abilities or dispositions, such as for self-consciousness or intelligence.  So, if persons were valuable as subjects of rights only because of such accidental qualities, and not in virtue of the kind of things they are, then, since such qualities come in varying degrees, basic rights would be possessed by human beings in varying degrees.  The proposition that all human beings have equal rights would be simply an outmoded superstition.  For example, if developed self-consciousness bestowed rights, then, since some people are more self-conscious than others (that is, have developed that capacity to a greater extent than others), some people would be “more equal” than others.  This would follow no matter which of the accidental qualities proposed as qualifying for personhood were selected.  Will Stretton,  Thomson and others agree with Joseph Fletcher, who years ago argued that human individuals with an Intelligence Quotient below 20, or perhaps also those with an IQ below 40, should not be treated as persons? [10]   But if they will not agree, why not?  Can they give any principled reason for their disagreement?  And can they give any principled reason for disagreement with someone who might say that the cut-off point should be 50, or 60, or 70?  Clearly, they cannot:  their proposed criterion is an arbitrarily selected degree of development of a capacity that all human beings possess, from conception on through until their death as physical organisms.  By contrast, though human beings differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, in short, degrees of development of their basic natural capacities, they all are equal in having the same nature.  The are all equally human beings, with the same basic natural capacities, though developed in varying degrees. 

          In sum.  I have presented a basic argument for the proposition that what is intrinsically valuable as a subject of rights comes to be at conception—or monozygotic twinning, or cloning should that ever occur—that is, from the zygote stage onward.  I have defended the argument against various attempts to evade its conclusion. 

            The main evidence for #4:  at conception, or whenever there is the full complement of genes plus activation in some way so that there is an actively developing zygote—at that point we can see that there is a distinct center of organization and active self-development, an internally self-directed organism developing itself toward the mature stage of the human organism.

            The main evidence for #3 (that is, we are physical organisms):  sensation is a bodily act, but it is the same I, the same subject, which performs the act of sensing and the act of understanding – so the thing that understands is identical with the thing that understands.

            The main evidence for #2 (that is, we are valuable in virtue of what we are):  if they’re going to say it is an accidental characteristic that makes you valuable, then it will have to be a potentiality, for example, a potentiality for consciousness.  But human embryos and fetuses do have a basic, natural capacity for consciousness, and so they will have to say that what is required is some degree of development of that capacity of consciousness.  But a.) the difference between the development of a basic capacity and the basic capacity itself is only a difference of degree, and the radical and dramatic difference between how we treat person vs how we treat nonpersons cannot, in justice, be based on a mere difference in degree.  b.) if we were valuable in virtue of some accidental characteristic, say, a development of consciousness—rather than in virtue of the kind of thing we are—then, since there are different degrees of the development of consciousness they will have to conclude that some people are more valuable than others.  And c.) their selection of the particular degree of development will necessarily be arbitrary.  Instead, I argued that we are intrinsically valuable as subjects of right in virtue of the kind of thing we are, namely a person, which I—following the tradition—define as an individual substantial entity which has the basic, natural capacity to reason and make free choices, even though it may take some time for this person to actualize those capacities.