2 - 2002

Ethics in modern medicine

From a Somethingto a Somebody

Why research on embryos can be reconciled with the Christian image of what is human

by Johannes Fischer

The development of a human being takes place in stages. The writer of this article takes into account the outward conditions which the embryo needs in order to develop. Unless it is implanted in the uterus, it cannot mature and become a human being. Conclusion: research on "surplus” embryos is morally defensible.

In the discussion on the use of embryonic stem cells for the development of new therapeutic techniques, official church statements so far are remarkably unanimous. According to these statements, there is only one possible position from a Christian viewpoint, and that is clearly to say No. In contrast to the official church picture, professional Protestant ethicists are found representing a spectrum of differing opinions, extending all the way to approval of therapeutic cloning. They take the view that on this difficult issue it is possible to have respectable reasons for subscribing to differing opinions.

This raises the question of how well-founded the official church position has been up to now. The reasoning on which it is based can be found in the joint statement of the Catholic and Evangelical Churches, "God is a Friend of Life”, which appeared in 1989. It argues that affirmations of the creation of humankind in the image of God, thus of the worth of every human being, also apply to unborn life, and that therefore the same protection should apply to the unborn which is enjoyed by every living person. The statement bases this conclusion on research with embryos, which has led to the unambiguous proof that "following the fusion of the egg and sperm cells, a living being exists which, if it develops, cannot become anything other than a human being”. This so-called continuity argument is extended to point out that at no time during the development of the embryo is something added which was not there before. However, this does not lead to the conclusion that the embryo is a human being in the fullest sense from the beginning; there is still a difference between the "individual human life”, which the embryo represents, and a human being.

No one would disagree that the living being which results from the fusion of the egg and sperm cells, if it develops, can only become a human being. The decisive question is, rather, to what extent one can draw conclusions in case it does not or cannot develop, and thus does not become a human being, but instead remains something other than a human being. This is what is suggested by the sentence which says that when it develops, it becomes a human being, but otherwise it remains something else, however one may describe this something else, whether as a "living being”, an "individual human life”, or otherwise.

Perhaps our actual convictions about the status of life before birth can best be expressed by speaking of a life which is in the process of becoming a human being. "Becoming” takes place between not-being and being. In the process, the human being-to-be is there already, and at the same time is not yet there, as long as something is lacking which it needs in order to possess full humanity. This way of looking at it has the advantage that the concept "human” is already used in relation to its status at the beginning of the process. To the degree that the human being-to-be is already there, it participates in the worth of a human being and thus deserves protection; to the degree that full humanity is not yet there, the not-yet-human being has a different status.

This idea of graduated degrees of human status obviously corresponds much better to our actual attitude towards human life than the view that a fertilised egg cell has full human worth from the very beginning. In this way, we see a difference between ending the life of a so-called "surplus” embryo, which was the product of in vitro fertilisation, and ending the life of a human being after birth. Could anyone tolerate the termination of a pregnancy in the third month, even from a distance, if he or she were seriously convinced that this is the same thing as killing a baby after birth?

On a purely empirical basis, we cannot look at all these embryos and see them as developing human beings-to-be. During their brief period of development, they are not different from embryos which go all the way to becoming human beings. This still does not mean that such an embryo is in fact a being in process of becoming human.

This has implications for judging research on embryos. First, with regard to "surplus” embryos which are the result of in vitro fertilisation, they have neither the life of an existing human being nor that of beings in process of becoming human, since the external conditions are not present which will enable them to become human beings. Thus the criterion is not fulfilled on which entitlement to the protection of human life is based — that the life of a human being be actually present. This does away with the decisive reason for prohibiting research involving such embryos. It then becomes possible to regard such research as morally defensible.

A similar way of judging is possible for therapeutic cloning. Even the totipotent cell which results from the transplantation of the nucleus from a skin cell into an egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed, and which then undergoes several divisions, thereby producing stem cells, is not a human being in process of becoming, since in therapeutic cloning the external conditions to make such development possible are also not present. Genetic potential is not the same thing as actual development into a human being, as the example of the surplus embryos shows. Therapeutic cloning can therefore also be regarded as morally defensible and reconcilable with the Christian view of what constitutes human life.

It is certainly possible to question such a view — this it has in common with other ways of thinking. We would gain a great deal if, within the church, we could admit to one another that there can be good reasons to have differing opinions on the issue of research with embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Johannes Fischer, Professor of Social Ethics at the University of Zürich, published this article in the journal "Zeitzeichen” (Signs of the Times), No. 1/2002. We present it here in abridged form.