Christian Worldview Concepts

The Ethics of Embryonic Biology

Person or Pre-embryo?

Tragically, thirty-three years of legalized abortion have educated the public to accept the destruction of human life at its earliest stages. For a research community increasingly divorced from moral restraint, when killing developed human fetuses is of no moral consequence, how could manipulating and/or destroying a microscopic preimplantation embryo be a problem? In short, human life faces the increased likelihood of having its value determined by biological factors. Why? Simply put, human biology is much more straightforward than having to deal with the messiness of religion and morality. You can see biology at work with a microscope, ultrasound, computer analyses and so forth. Religion and morality do not possess such observable physical properties.

In part two of this series of articles, we provided a broad overview of the early biology of human life and its implications for embryonic stem cell research. It is the biology of embryonic development that most excites researchers because they believe that very biology can work in regenerating diseased or damaged cells in adult bodies, thereby putting powerful tools into the hands of physicians to attack diseases such as Alzheimers, Parkinsons, diabetes and many more.

A good number of those who support embryonic stem cell research use the science of embryology to repel moral arguments against using human embryos. Actress and stem cell advocate Mary Tyler Moore compared human embryos to goldfish, while Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) described human embryos as "nothing more than a dot on a piece of paper." They are quick to dismiss objections to using embryos for medical research by pointing out that they are not persons, but are only human-like, as if simply evoking biological terminology settles the matter. By calling an embryo a pre-embryo, a trophoblast or a blastocyst, the human being can be reduced to its biological designation, at least psychologically.

This has been a tactic of abortion rights proponents for years. By reducing human identity to mere biology, the embryo becomes just a thing, not a living being. Instead of this being possessing some inherent value, this thing is reduced to a mere biological resource. The embryo/blastocyst/blastula becomes just another laboratory specimen.

However, reducing the embryo to its biological status begs the central question. Biologists may tell us that the embryo is human and that it is alive, but biologists (as biologists) cannot tell us what moral status should be attributed to it. Biology may tell us that the embryo is a collection of human cells, but it is not within the field of biology to tell us how we should treat this collection of human cells.

Biology may tell us how these cells work, of what biological substances they consist and how they might be manipulated. Yet, this collection of human cells is not just any collection of cells. It is a unique set of cells, ones that possess within themselves all that is necessary to develop into everything we associate with the human person. The only metaphysical difference between the embryo and the fully grown and developed being it is destined to become is time and growth. Biologically, size and physical development are the only differences.

We should not be bluffed into silence by biologists who claim that their work must go forward as they desire because the moral dilemma is simply a conflict between competing religious or moral traditions.² Are we to accept the flawed premise that since theologians and moral philosophers cannot agree on a common definition of the human person, science must therefore be free to do what it wishes with the tiniest and most defenseless of humans?

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² Gilbert, p. 160