When do Human Beings Begin?
Rebecca D. Bailey
School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
PSYC 210: Developmental Psychology
Instructor Kennedy
May 23, 2022
When do Human Beings Begin?
The current climate of “Pro-Life” vs. “Pro-Choice” specifically revolves around alleged
scientific facts about when human life truly begins; the unfortunate truth of the matter is, too
many scientific myths have been reported as facts which have caused not only confusion, but
chaos among the masses of society. Prenatal development is imperative to research, study and
thoroughly comprehend in order to make informed decisions to uphold the integrity of society.
Those who are pro-life understand that life begins at conception, where pro-choice supporters
believe the human life begins sometime after further development of the fetus. This paper will
discuss the arguments and the points made by both theories, and summarized by explaining
which the superior argument is.
Human Life Begins at Conception
One scientific myth is that pro-lifers should be against any destruction of eggs or sperm because
that is ending life and equivalent, if not exactly the same as abortion. To that, Irving (1999) states
that those individual cells, although containing human life, are not human beings. Only proper
understanding of the process of human embryogenesis enables answering scientifically the
question when the life cycle of human individual starts. Therefore, in the following text the main
steps of the human developmental process are going to be briefly described, primarily during the
first 15 days after fertilization.
A human being originates from two living cells: the oocyte and the spermatozoon transmitting
the torch of life to the next generation. The oocyte is a cell approximately 120? in diameter with
thick membrane, known as the zona pellucida. The spermatozoon moves, using the flagellum or
tail, and the total length of the spermatozoon including the tail is 60?.
After singamy, the zygote undergoes mitotic cell division as it moves down the fallopian tube
toward the uterus. A series of mitotic divisions then leads to the development of the preembryo.
The newly divided cells are called blastomeres. From 1 to 3 days after singamy, there is a
division into two cells, then four cells. Blastomeres form cellular aggregates of distinct,
totipotent, undifferentiated cells that, during several early cell divisions, retain the capacity to
develop independently into normal preembryos. As the blastocyst is in the process of attaching to
the uterine wall, the cells increase in number and organize into two layers of cells. Implantation
progresses as the outer cell-layer of the blastocyst, the trophectoderm, invades the uterine wall
and erodes blood vessels and glands. Having begun five or more days after fertilization with the
attachment of the blastocyst to the endometrium of the uterus, implantation is completed when
the blastocyst is fully embedded in the endometrium several days later. Even during these 5-6
days, modern medicine introduces the possibility of making preimplantation genetic diagnosis.
However, at this time, these cells are not yet totally differentiated in terms of their determination
to specific cells or organs of the embryo. The term pre-embryo, then, includes the developmental
stages from the first cell division of the zygote through the morula and the blastocyst. By
approximately the 14th day after the end of the process of fertilization, all cells, depending on
their position, will have become parts of the placenta and membranes or the embryo. The
“embryo” stage, therefore, begins approximately 16 days after the beginning of the fertilization
process and continues until the end of 8 weeks after fertilization, when organogenesis is
complete.
Pre-embryo is the structure that exists from the end of the process of fertilization until the
appearance of a single primitive streak. Until the completion of implantation pre-embryo is
capable of dividing into multiple entities, but does not contain enough genetic information to
develop into an embryo: it lacks of genetic material from maternal mitochondria and of maternal
and parental genetic messages in the form of messenger RNA or proteins. So, during the
preembryonic period has not yet been determined with certainty that a biological individual will
result or would it be one or more (identical twins forming), 50 that the assignment of full rights
of a human person is inconsistent with biological reality.
A conclusion is that the pre-embryo requires the establishment of special rules in the society: it
cannot claim absolute protection based on claims of personhood; although meriting respect, it
does not have the same moral value that a human person has. Today, one largely accepted
opinion is that until the 14th day from fertilization or at least, until implantation -the human
embryo may not be considered, from the ontological point of view, as an individual.
BIOETHICAL ASPECTS
The idea of embryo/foetus as the miniaturized infant or adult is true in extent that the embryonic
I foetal physiologist must be able to apply knowledge of every system obtained in born, yet quite
untrue in failing to recognize the many ways in which life before birth differs fundamentally
from life after birth. The newly conceived form presents itself as the biologically defined reality:
it is an individual that is completely human in development that autonomously, moment by
moment without any discontinuity, actualizes its proper form in order to realize through intrinsic
activity, a design present in its own genome. Embryo as a patient is best understood as the subset
of the concept of the foetus as the patient. These two concepts opened whole set of questions
regarding ethical problems. The embryo as the patient is indivisible from its mother. However,
balance is needed in protection interests of embryo/foetus and the mother. One prominent
approach to understanding the concept of the embryo/foetus as a patient has involved attempts to
show whether the embryo/foetus has independent moral status or personalhood. Independent
moral status for the foetus would mean that one or more of characteristics possessed either in, or
of the embryo/foetus itself and, therefore, independently of the pregnant woman or any other
factor, generate and therefore ground obligations to the embryo/foetus on the part of the pregnant
woman and her physician.
A wide range of intrinsic characteristics has been considered for this role, e.g., moment of
conception, implantation, central nervous system development, quickening, and the moment of
birth. Given the variability of proposed characteristics, there are many views about when the
embryo/foetus does or does not acquire independent moral status. Some take the view that the
embryo/foetus possesses independent moral status from the moment of conception or
implantation. Others believe that the embryo/foetus acquires independent moral status in degrees,
thus resulting in “graded” moral status. Still others hold, at least implicitly, that the
embryo/foetus never has independent moral status 50 long as it is in utero. Being a patient does
not require that one possesses independent moral status. Being a patient means that one can
benefit from the application of the clinical skills of the physician. Put more precisely, a human
being without independent moral status is properly regarded as a patient when the following
conditions are met: that a human being is presented to the physician for the purpose of applying
clinical interventions that are reliably expected to be efficacious, in that they are reliably
expected to result in a greater balance of goods over harms in the future of the human being in
question. In other words, an individual is considered a patient when a physician has beneficence-
based ethical obligations to that individual.
To clarify the concept the embryo/foetus as the patient, beneficence- based obligation is
necessary to be provided. Beneficence- based obligations to the foetus and embryo exist when
the foetus can later achieve independent omral status. This leads to conclusion that ethical
significance of unborn child is in direct link with the child to be born -the child it can become.
ARGUMENTS FOR BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE AND HUMAN PERSON AT
FERTILIZATION
The fundamental approaches of biomedical and social practice must begin with the
understanding that the subject before birth is a person and that “personhood” is conferred by
successful fertilization of the egg. To hide from this in silence or ignorance should be
unacceptable to all as stressed by Scarpelli.
View that human life begins when sperm and eggs fuse to give rise to a single cell human zygote
whose genetic individuality and uniqueness remain unchanged during normal development is
widely supported. Because the zygote has the capacity to become an adult human individual, it is
thought it must be one already. The same zygote organizes itself into an embryo, a foetus, a child
and an adult. By this account, the zygote is an actual human individual and not simple a potential
one in much the same way as an infant is on actual human person with potential to develop to
maturity and not just a potential person. As Scarpelli pointed out recently outside the realm of
religious dogma, there has been no one, whose existence can be traced back to any entity other
than the fertilized egg. The biological line of existence of each individual, without exception
begins precisely when fertilization of the egg is successful.
The process of fertilization actually begins with conditioning of the spermatozoon in the male
and female reproductive tracts. Thereafter, fertilization involves not only the egg itself but also
the various investments, which surround the egg at the time it is released from the ovary follicle.
Fertilization, therefore, is not an event, but a complex biochemical process requiring a minimum
of 24 hours to complete singamy, that is the formation of a diploid set of chromosomes. During
this process, there is no commingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes within a single
nuclear membrane (pre-zygote); after this process the parental chromosomes material is
commingled (zygote).
Among the many other activities of this new cell, most important is the recognition of the new
genome, which represents the principal information centre for the development of the new
human being and for all its further activities. For the better understanding of the very nature of
the zygote, two main features are to be at least mentioned here. The first feature is that the zygote
exists and operates from singly on as a being, ontologically one, and with a precise identity. The
second feature is that the zygote is intrinsically oriented and determined to a definite
development. Both identity and orientation are due essentially to the genetic information with
which it is endowed. That is why many do believe that this cell represents the exact point in time
and space where a new human individual organism initiates its own life cycle.
DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS
Catholic Church’s teachings are clearly described in the Introduction Donum Vitae: “A human
creature is to be respected and treated as a person from conception and therefore from that same
time his (her) rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the
invaluable right to life of each innocent human creature”.
In 1997, the third Assembly of the pontifical Academy for life was held in Vatican City. It has
been concluded that “at the fusion of two gametes, a new real human individual initiates its own
existence, or life cycle, during which -given all the necessary and sufficient conditions -it will
autonomously realize all the potentialities with which he is intrinsically endowed. The embryo,
therefore, from the time of gametes fuse, is a real human individual, not a potential human
individual. It was even added that recent findings of human biological science recognize that in
zygote resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already
constituted.
In Western Europe and in the North and South America these opinions are mostly based on
Judeo-Christian theology, in Arabian Countries, in Africa and in Asia prevail the influences of
the Islamic and Budish religions. Although their approach to the beginning of human life is
impressively similar, each of these religions has different attitudes to the problem of embryo
research, infertility and its therapy. In a fact, while the Jewish attitude towards infertility is
expressed in the Talmud sayings and in the Bible (synthesized in the first commandment of God
to Adam “Be fruitful and multiply”), the Christian point of view establishes no absolute right to
parenthood. According to the Islamic views, attempts to cure infertility are not only permissible,
but also a duty. Buddhism has imposed strict ethics on priests, but it has relatively lenient
attitudes toward lay people, so if medical treatment for infertility is available, people should
make use of it.
For about two thousand years the opinions of Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher and
naturalist, on the beginning of the human being were commonly held. He argued that the male
semen had a special power residing in it, pneuma, to transform the menstrual blood, first into a
Iiving being with a vegetative soul after seven days and subsequently into one with a sensitive
soul 40 days after contact with the male semen.
Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s theory but specified that rational ensolement took place through the
creative act of God to transform the living creature into a human being once it had acquired a
sensitive soul. The first conception took place over seven days while the second conception or
complete formation of the living individual with a complete human nature lasted 40 days.
Hippocrates believed that entrance of the soul into the male embryo occurred on the thirtieth day
of intrauterine life. It entered into the female embryo on the fortieth day.
Actually, this idea was a considerable improvement on the scheme found in the Book of
Leviticus, where it is suggested that the soul does not enter the female until forty days after the
conception. In short, the rational soul enables the matter to become a human being, an animated
body, an embodied soul, a human person. Harvey’s experiments with deer in 1633 proved
Aristotle’s theory of human reproduction wrong, without himself finding a satisfactory
explanation of human conception. After modern scientists discovered the process of fertilization
most people took for granted that human being, complete with a rational soul, began once
fertilization had taken place.
It is clear that the answer to the question “When has the human being actually come to life?”
could only be given by combining the cognition of different religions, philosophy and various
biological scientific disciplines. There is a very fine line between the competence of science and
the one of metaphysics, and it greatly depends on the individual’s philosophical principles.
Those two, more or less autonomous intellectual disciplines have very often tried dominating one
another, or ignoring each other. It is only recently that the majority of scientists and some
theologists have come to realize that the separate meanings of scientific and religious “truths”
complement themselves thus representing methodologically independent entities.
Current science is not interested in what Nature is, but in the facts that could be started regarding
it, thus trying to explain the term, rather then inventing it. The main difference between science
and religion can be seen in the fact that scientific “truths”, unlike religious postulates, can and
must be experimentally verified and the methods of scientific cognition can be easily explained
and learnt. While religion favours irrationality, science prefers an entirely rational approach to
matters of importance. Intellectual cognition when scientifically expressed usually is in a form of
mathematical formulas and presented quantitatively.
On the contrary, religion tends to keep its truths in a form of metaphoric expressions, preferring
qualitative. Today, there is a tendency, on a higher level, to reopen the dialogue between the
science and religion, which was present at the very beginning of our culture. Religion had
existed long before science came to life, but science is not to be thought of as a continuation of
the religion. Each discipline should preserve its principles, its separate interpretations and its
own conclusions. In the end, both of them represent different components of the one and
indivisible culture of mankind.
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