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1 | Is it, or is it not, a human person? |
| If it is not a human person, there needs to be agreement on the stage of pregnancy or delivery that the embryo or fetus attains personhood. |
An agreement on these questions would go a long way towards resolving the abortion conflict:
| If a zygote is considered a person, then all abortion is murder. One can argue for the criminalization of all abortions, except for unusual cases such as when a continued pregnancy threatens the woman's life. |
| If it is not a person, then at least an early abortion involves the killing of a non-person which has the possibility of someday developing into a person. A good case could be made to allow women to choose freely whether to have an abortion up to a time when personhood is attained. |
Lack of agreement about the start of "personhood" in U.S. law:
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its (in)famous Roe v. Wade decision. This was the ruling that gave women the right to choose to have a legalized abortion, early in gestation, for any reason. 2 Justice Blackmun noted that there was no consensus in law when life (i.e. human personhood) begins.
| He cited a number of references to "person" in the U.S. Constitution. But he found that: "...in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application." |
| He later wrote that the State of: "Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate." 2 |
| He concluded: "In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense." |
| Editor Joel Feinberg commented on Roe v. Wade, writing: "Hence, the state should not take one theory of life and force those who do not agree with that theory to subscribe to it, which is the reason why Blackmun writes in Roe, 'In view of all this, we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake'." 3 |
The abortion debate has heated up since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. However, few if any new scientific or medical findings have surfaced that might define when personhood starts.
Lack of agreement about the start of "personhood" among faith groups:
Justice Blackmun noted that there is a wide diversity of belief among different religions:
| In ancient times, the Greek Stoics believed that human personhood did not begin until live birth. |
| At the present time, most Jews believe that full human personhood is attained only during delivery when the fetus is half delivered from its mother's body. |
| Justice Blackmun referred to the Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," which was the predominant belief among Christians throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) wrote in one of his biological treatises 4 that the male embryo develops a human soul -- and thus becomes a human person -- about 40 days after conception, whereas a female fetus acquires its soul at about 90 days. For much of its history, the Christian religion believed in this delayed-ensoulment principle and allowed abortions up to 90 days into pregnancy. |
| He noted that those Protestant denominations which had made formal statements on abortion generally regarded abortion to be "a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family." Since Roe v. Wade, Protestant denominations have been divided along liberal/conservative lines with the latter strongly opposing abortion access. |
| The Roman Catholic Church, since the 19th century, has consistently regarded personhood as beginning at conception. |
A few pro-choicers believe that the fetus becomes a human person only after it has been delivered and is breathing on its own as a separate individual. This belief may be based on Biblical passages. For example, Genesis 2:7 states that God made Adam's body from the dust of the ground. But it was only after God "breathed into it the breath of life" that Adam "became a living person."
In the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a Missouri law which said that life begins at conception. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stevens wrote: "...the intensely divisive character of much of the national debate over the abortion issue reflects the deeply held religious convictions of many participants in the debate....The Missouri Legislature may not inject its endorsement of a particular religious tradition into this debate, for '[t]he Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution] does not allow public bodies to foment such disagreement'." 5
What is a zygote?
A near consensus can be reached that:
| A zygote is definitely alive: There is a general consensus that a zygote is: "...biologically alive. It fulfills the four criteria needed to establish biological life: |
- metabolism,
- growth,
- reaction to stimuli, and
- reproduction." 1
The fourth criteria may appear strange. But it can reproduce itself through twinning during the first 14 days after conception. That is how mono-zygotic (identical) twins develop.
| A zygote has human DNA: In almost all cases, at the time of conception, the 23 chromosomes from the ovum and the 23 chromosomes from the spermatozoon combined to form a 46 chromosome DNA structure. The DNA is new, unique and definitely human. |
| A zygote is a form of human life: A zygote is alive and carries human DNA. Thus, it is a form of human life. |
Many pro-choicers believe that a zygote is not a human personhood. It is definitely a form of human life. However, they view it as only a potential human person. They believe that personhood develops at a later stage of pregnancy.
This essay continues below.
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When is personhood attained by the embryo or fetus?
Those who believe that a zygote is a potential person, but not a human person, reject some of the arguments put forth by the "other side."
| Atheists, Humanists, many religious liberals, and others generally reject the possibility of God injecting a soul into the zygote at conception. The soul is a largely religious concept whose existence has never been proved scientifically. It cannot be located, weighed, seen, smelled, felt, measured, or otherwise detected by any known instrument or human sense. |
| Most reject the belief that the presence of a unique DNA code converts the egg into a human person. They note that a skin scraping of a child or adult contains a very large number of living, single cells; each has the same unique human DNA code as does the human from which it came. Scottish scientists removed a cell from the mammary tissue of a sheep, inject it into a sheep ovum whose DNA has been removed, and produce "Dolly," a cloned sheep who is genetically identical to her "parent." This same procedure has been replicated for many other mammals. A sample from a human skin scraping, or from a swab of the inside of the mouth, or a hair follicle contains the same type of human DNA information as does a zygote. They presumably should both be given the same status. Skeptics might argue that since we don't consider a hair follicle, etc. to be a human person, we should not look upon zygotes as persons either. |
| Some pro-choicers note that a zygote has no limbs; no head; no brain; no ability to see, hear, smell, taste or touch; no internal organs, no self-consciousness, no ability to think, reason, sense its environment, etc. Even at the age of one month, a human embryo cannot be distinguished from the embryo of a cat or dog. Three things make us human persons: the ability to think, a moral sense, and our physical appearance. The zygote exhibits none of these. |
Some beliefs about when personhood begins are:
| A few hours after conception when the ovum splits into two cells. Some regard human personhood as being defined by the first act of cell splitting. |
| About two weeks after conception, when a yellow streak develops in the embryo. This will later become the neural tube which will be protected by the backbone. It develops into the brain and central nervous system. Once this develops, it is impossible for the embryo to split into a pair of identical twins. The concept of personhood implies a single entity; twins develop into two persons. After two weeks from conception, the embryo can no longer split and grow to become two persons. Some consider it a person at this stage. |
| 3 weeks from conception when the embryo is about 2 mm long and has started to develop visible external body parts. It is no longer a blob of tissue. |
| At about 4 weeks. when its heart starts to beat. |
| 6 weeks from conception, when primitive brain waves can be first sensed. |
| 2 months, when the fetus has lost its neck structures which resemble gill slits, and its tail. Its face resembles that of a primate. |
| 3 months the fetus begins to "look like" a baby. The recent development of high resolution 3-D ultrasound equipment provides incredibly detailed pictures of the fetus at this stage. These photographs are convincing many people that the fetus is a human person at this stage because it looks like one -- even though none of its higher brain functions are functioning. 6 |
| 16 weeks: Fetal movement, often called quickening, is usually detectable by the 16th week of pregnancy. It is apparently an involuntary movement of arms and legs. The fetal brain is not developed to the point where the fetus is conscious at this stage in gestation. |
| 4 months when the fetus' face has developed to the point where one can tell one fetus from another. |
| About 24 weeks, when the fetus becomes viable, (i.e. able to live outside the womb) with current technology. When medical ethicist Bonnie Steinbock was interviewed by Newsweek and asked the question "So when does life begin?," she answered: "If we’re talking about life in the biological sense, eggs are alive, sperm are alive. Cancer tumors are alive. For me, what matters is this: When does it have the moral status of a human being? When does it have some kind of awareness of its surroundings? When it can feel pain, for example, because that’s one of the most brute kinds of awareness there could be. And that happens, interestingly enough, just around the time of viability. It certainly doesn't happen with an embryo." 7 |
| At 26 weeks or later, when the fetal brain's higher functions become operational. Scientists have: " measured brain-wave patterns like those during dreaming at 8 months gestation." 8 Carl Sagan discusses this point in his final book. He suggests that the one factor that is uniquely human is our ability to think. Thus we become persons when the cerebral cortex is in place and "large-scale linking up of neurons" begins. This does not start until the 24th to 27th week of pregnancy -- the sixth month. |
| Most Jewish traditions teach that a fetus becomes a full person usually when its head emerges from the birth canal. |
| Some believe that a personhood happens when a soul enters the body at some stage of gestation or -- as in the case of some Aboriginals -- after birth has taken place. |
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References:
- The color microphotograph of a just-fertilized ovum shown by permission from Dr. R. C. Wagner, Department of Biological Sciences, at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE. They have many other photographs at their Web page: http://www.udel.edu/ We thank Dr. Wagner for allowing us to reproduce these microphotographs.
- "U.S. Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)," at: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/
- Joel Feinberg, Ed., "The Problem of Abortion," 2nd edition, Wadsworth, (1984), Page 195.
- Aristotle "History of Animals, Book VII, Chapter 3, 583b.
- "U.S. Supreme Court, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989)," at: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/
- Newsweek published six ultrasound images of a fetus at seven, nine, 13, 16, 23 and 35 weeks gestation. See: http://www.msnbc.com/
- Debra Rosenberg, "' When Can It Feel Pain?' For this philosopher, 'viability' makes the moral difference," Newsweek, 2003-JUN-9, at: http://www.msnbc.com/
- "Do You Hear What I Hear?", Newsweek, Special Issue, Summer 1991.
- Scott Gilbert, "When does human life begin?," (1996), at: http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/
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Copyright © 1995 to 2004 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2004-OCT-11
Author: B.A. Robinson
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