Human Embryology and Church Teachings

C. Ensoulment and the "Personhood" Arguments

The issue of when the immaterial human soul (and thus personhood) is initially present in the early human being has been a source of some disagreement in the tradition, leading to different conclusions and impacting several current related bioethics issues, especially abortion and human embryo research. Some argue for immediate personhood, others for delayed personhood. But the Church has consistently held that the critical criterion remains the fact that there is a human being present, based on teachings of the human being's unitary nature:

Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, 'from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already…'

Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by science, the Church insists, the results of scientific research on the human embryo provide 'a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?' Furthermore, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify a prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo.

Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientific debates and those philosophical affirmations to which the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself, the Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result of human procreation, from the first moment of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as body and spirit. (Pope John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 1995, par. 60; Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987, I, 1)

The Pontifical Academy for Life has also agreed to the possibility of reasoning to an immediate personal presence in the human embryo: "Judgment - as an act of the human mind - on the personal nature of the human embryo springs necessarily from the evidence of the biological datum which implies the recognition of the presence of a human being with an intrinsic active capacity for development, and not a mere possibility of life." Affirming once more the unitary conception of a human being, the Academy states: "The ethical exigency of respect and care for the life and integrity of the embryo, demanded by the presence of a human being, is motivated by a unitary conception of man (Corpore et anima unus), whose personal dignity must be recognized from the beginning of his physical existence." Therefore the duty of respecting the human embryo as a human person "derives from the reality of the matter and from the force of rational argumentation, and not exclusively from a position of faith." Still, the mere presence of a human being is the critical criterion: "From the juridical point of view, the core of the debate on the protection of the human embryo does not involve identifying earlier or later indices of 'humanity' which appear after insemination, but consists rather in the recognition of fundamental human rights by virtue of the presence of a human being. Above all, the right to life and to physical integrity from the first moment of existence, in keeping with the principle of equality, must be respected" (Pontifical Academy for Life 1997a).

Those in the tradition who argue for immediate personhood also point to the advances in science and to the Church's anthropological teachings on the unitary nature of a human being, or hylomorphism. That is, a human being is not composed of two different separate substances (dualism, or "mind/body" split), but rather is a single individual composite substance of a rational nature. Thus the rational soul is not a thing itself separate from the human body or vice versa, and the soul always contains virtually all three powers of the soul - the vegetative, sensitive, and rational. The soul does not rest in any one place in the body, but rather is present throughout it and is why "an intervention on the human body affects not only the tissues, the organs, and their functions, but also involves the person himself on different levels" (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1987, Introduction, 3). The material body and immaterial soul of a human being must always exist coextensively from the beginning of a human being's existence. Thus, as the realist philosopher Thomas Aquinas states, the word "person" does not refer just to the rational part of the immaterial soul, nor to the whole immaterial soul alone, but to the entire composite human substance. This is why, for Thomas Aquinas, the formal definition of "a human being" must be inclusive of all these aspects of the composite human being, including "undesignated matter" (Aristotle, Physica 2.1.193b 3-5; 2.2.194b 12-14; 2.2.193b 33-37; De anima 1.5.411b 14-18; 1.5.411b 24-28; Metaphysica 3.2.997b 18-998a10; 11.1.1059a 34-1059b14; Boethius, pp. 84, 85, 101, 103; Klubertanz 1953, p. 312; Klubertanz 1963, pp. 98-100, 116; Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae Ia, q.45, a. 4 ad 2; Ia, q.29, a.1 ans. ad 2, 3, 5; Ia, q. 29, a. 2 ans; Summa theologiae IIIa, q.19, a.1, ad 4,; Summa theologiae Ia, q. 75, a. 4, ans; On Being and Essence Chap. 2; The Division and Method of the Sciences, p. 14, 29, 39, 40; Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics Bk. VIII, lect.1, Cathala, nos. 1688-1689; Wilhelmsen 1956, pp. 78-79 and 103-105).

It is worth noting that there are some who still attempt to appeal to the authority of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle to support an argument for "delayed personhood". However, a thorough read of the major works of these philosophers indicates that, had the required epistemological starting point for their realist philosophical analyses been the accurate objective facts of human embryology and human molecular genetics as known today, as realist philosophers they would have necessarily had to argue for "immediate personhood" themselves. Indeed, as Aristotle himself noted, "... the least deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold" (Aristotle, in De coelo, 1.5.271b, 9-10), often paraphrased by Thomas Aquinas as "a small error in the beginning leads to a multitude of errors in the end." It is hardly a new academic insight that the Aristotle of the De Anima is and has been for centuries highly problematic and contradictory to his own main-stream systematic metaphysical doctrines on substance and anthropology (Mary Louise Gill 1989, esp. p. 173; Marjorie Grene 1963, esp. p. 175; Charlotte Witt 1989). In Aristotle's main theory, material substance is a composite of two principles -- form and matter -- the pre-dominant theory in his Categories, Physics, the first half of the Metaphysics, and even in many parts of his De Anima. Aristotle's odd theory of substance as form alone, or even as only the "rational" part of the form, and the succession of souls - still used by some to argue for "delayed personhood" -- is found only in the second half of his Metaphysics and in parts of the De Anima -- which contradicts his former theory. (See extensive 150-page philosophical analysis in Appendix A, "Aristotle: A question of substance", in Irving doctoral dissertation, Philosophical and Scientific Analysis of the Nature of the Early Human Embryo, 1991, pp. 296-381). There is also some degree of contradiction in Thomas Aquinas, whose major theory held that material substances are composed of three principles - form, matter and esse (act of existing). Yet Thomas (who was not a scientist) sometimes "unblushingly" followed Aristotle's odd theory of separate form (see, for example, the differences between the definition of a human being and that of a human soul in the De Ente et Essentia, Chapter Two and Chapter Four). It is important to reiterate that for both of them the state of knowledge about human embryology and human genetics when they wrote was still rather primitive (e.g., both still held for only 4 physical elements total in the material world -- air, earth, fire and water) (Irving 1993, pp. 2-19).

In arguing for immediate personhood today, if the human being begins to exist when the sperm penetrates the oocyte at fertilization in sexual reproduction as documented for many decades in the Carnegie Stages and for over a hundred years in the work of Wilhelm His, then so too must the human soul (Klubertanz 1953, p. 312). The same would be true for asexual human reproduction (as in twinning). There is, so to say, no early "non-human being" or "non human person", no "intermediate human being" or "intermediate human person", no "seed", or no "being-on-the-way", no "human vegetable", nor "non-human animal" (Aristotle, Metaphysica, 3.2.997b 18-998a10; 11.1.1059a34-1059b 14; Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 45, a. 4 ad 2). Indeed, this is an empirical fact of human genetics. Further, if there is a human body whose cells possess 46 chromosomes and specifically human cells, tissues and organs continuously unfold, then there must also simultaneously be a human soul that is directing those specifically human biological functions and activities. Thus from the beginning of his/her existence the human embryo is a person, whose rights and protections may not be violated for any greater good (Bracken 2001, pp. 62, 66; Cottier 2006, p. 32; Doran 1989, p. 39; Heaney 1992, p. 36; Hershenov and Koch 2005, pp. 753-754; Irving 1993a, pp. 7-8; Johnson 1995, p. 743; Nelson 2007, pp. 299-301; Regan 1992, p. 122; Rossini 2006, p. 820; Schmitz 1978, p. 3).

Still, the Pontifical Academy for Life hesitates that such philosophical knowledge of when personhood begins is not definite: "[S]ince this is a philosophical interpretation, the answer to this question cannot be of a 'definite kind,' but must remain open, in any case, to further considerations" (Pontifical Academy for Life 2006, p. 6). The same, however, could be said for the philosophical presuppositions of those in the tradition who argue for delayed personhood. Isn't it a question, rather, of which philosophical system can withstand serious scrutiny and which cannot, and of which philosophical matches reality? Some philosophical systems do stand the test; many do not.

In general, advocates for delayed personhood claim that either there is no human being immediately present or, if there is, it is not a human person yet. Examples of these claims include those that ground their arguments on the false scientific myth of the pre-embryo and its various substitutes, the biogenetic law (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny), or the insistence that the early embryo is not an organism but just a ball of cells, a seed or being-on-the-way (Bedate and Cefalo 1989, p. 641; Bole 1989, p. 647; Bole 1990, p. 637; Curran 1978, pp. 17-26; Cefalo 1991, p. 41; Cahill 1988, pp. 85-98; Donceel 1988, pp. 48-53; Engelhardt 1974, p. 226; Engelhardt 1985, p. 111; Ford 1988, p. 298; Grobstein 1985, pp. 213-236; Grobstein 1988, p. 33; Guenin 2004a, p. 805; Guenin 2004b, p. 1215; Hare 1988, p. 214; Hellegers 1970, p. 9; Hellegers 1978; Jones and Schroder 1987, p. 192; Kinsley 2000, p. A17; Kuhse and Singer 1985, p. 138; Kuhse and Singer 1986, pp. 149-153; Lockwood 1985, p. 10; Lockwood 1988, pp. 187-213; McCormick 1975, pp. 34-35; McCormick 1991, pp. 1-15; McLaren 1984, pp. 101-120; McLaren 1986, p. 49; Moussa and Shannon 1992, pp. 30-37; Ramsey 1970, p. 75; Ramsey 1975, pp. 35-36; Robertson 1986, pp. 53-70; Robertson 1991, p 301; Robertson 1995a, pp. 37-38; Robertson 1995b, pp. 13-24; Sass 1989, pp. 45-59; Shannon and Wolter 1990, p. 615; Singer 1981, p. 118; Singer and Kuhse 1987, pp. 13-14; Singer et al. 1990, pp. 3-4, 6-12, 14-24, 43-50, 59-60, 66-72, 96-106, esp. 252; Suarez 1990, pp. 627-635; Tauer diss. 1982; Tauer 1988, pp. 54-84; Tooley 1974, pp. 59, 64; Varmus 1999; Wallace 1989, pp. 23-53; Warnock Report 1984, pp. 27, 63; Weissman 2003; West 2001 and 2007; Wildes 2001, pp. 3-33; British House of Lords 2001; Commonwealth of Australia 1986; U. S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare 1979, p. 101; American Fertility Society 1986, 46: 27S; National Academy of Sciences 2002a,b; National Institutes of Health 1994, February 2 meeting, pp. 27, 31, 50-80, 85-87, 104-106, February 3 meeting, pp. 6-55, February 51 meeting, pp. 9-41; New Zealand 2003; Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 1986 and 1989).

In response it is argued that the scientific claims used to ground these delayed- personhood arguments have been variously rejected by the international nomenclature committee in human embryology for decades, as well as by other individual scientific fields themselves. For example, it is known empirically that the immediate product of both sexual and asexual human reproduction is already a whole individual human being, a human organism, a human embryo. Consequently, it is argued, the empirical scientific starting points for delayed personhood are scientifically inaccurate and erroneous, and therefore philosophical conclusions based on them are invalid. Another problem plaguing these claims is that any delay in personhood (or dualism) inherently contains a philosophical mind/body split that has proven theoretically and practically indefensible for centuries in the academy - especially since there can be no communication or interaction between the two independent and separate substances. Further, if only those human beings who actively express rational attributes or sentience are persons (Engelhardt 1984 and 1985; Kinsley 2000; Kuhse and Singer 1985, 1986; Robertson 1986, 1991, 1994, 1995; Singer 1981; Singer and Kuhse 1987; Singer et al. 1990), then the following list of human beings are not persons and thus have no ethical or legal rights and protections: the mentally ill and retarded, drug addicts, alcoholics, the frail elderly, the physically disabled, the comatose, and those with brain or nerve damage - or even adult humans when asleep, as pointed out centuries ago by Mersenne contra Decartes infamous and totally academically indefensible philosophical mind/body split (Smith 1902, pp. 1-276; Gilson 1930, pp. 1-336; Boas 1967, pp. 344-354; Irving 1993a, pp. 18-46; Irving 1993b, pp. 243-272; Irving 1995, pp. 193-215; Garber and Wilson 1998, pp. 833-867; Hatfield 2002, esp. pp. 3ff).

Although the Church has made it clear that the abuse of early human beings is not permissible regardless of the ensoulment debates, there is still some ambiguity expressed about whether the term "personhood" applies only to sexually reproduced human embryos (i.e., the union of sperm and oocyte) or if it applies also to asexually reproduced human embryos as well (as in naturally occurring human monozygotic identical twins in vivo or in vitro as well as human embryos cloned or genetically engineered in vitro). For example, in the various citations from the Church above, sometimes the phrase "from the first moment of its existence" is used; yet sometimes the phrase "from the moment of conception" is used. However, one phrase is not coextensive with the other. The former phrase would embrace both sexually and asexually reproduced human embryos; the latter, only sexually reproduced embryos, since conception has traditionally referred only to fertilization (sexual reproduction). Indeed, the term "conception" is often mis-defined now, even in major professional reports and literature, government regulations, and state, national, and international law as meaning "implantation", which is actually 5-7 days post-fertilization. (see Miller-Keane Encyclopedia & Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Allied Health 2003, p. 406; O'Rahilly and Müller 1994, p. 19; Oxford Companion to Medicine 1986, p. 254; Peters 2006, pp. 199-228; Sloane-Dorland Annotated Medical-Legal Dictionary 1992, p. 131; Spahn and Andrade 1998, pp. 261, 295). Often this scientific mis-information is based on the erroneous "scientific" term "pre-embryo" or any of its various "substitutes" (Bedate and Cefalo 1989, p. 641; Bole 1989, p. 647; Bole 1990, p. 637; Curran 1978, pp. 17-26; Cefalo 1991, p. 41; Cahill 1988, pp. 85-98; Donceel 1988, pp. 48-53; Engelhardt 1974, p. 226; Engelhardt 1985, p. 111; Ford 1988, p. 298; Grobstein 1985, pp. 213-236; Grobstein 1988, p. 33; Guenin 2004a, p. 805; Guenin 2004b, p. 1215; Hare 1988, p. 214; Hellegers 1970, p. 9; Hellegers 1978; Jones and Schroder 1987, p. 192; Kinsley 2000, p. A17; Kuhse and Singer 1985, p. 138; Kuhse and Singer 1986, pp. 149-153; Lockwood 1985, p. 10; Lockwood 1988, pp. 187-213; McCormick 1975, pp. 34-35; McCormick 1991, pp. 1-15; McLaren 1984, pp. 101-120; McLaren 1986, p. 49; Moussa and Shannon 1992, pp. 30-37; Ramsey 1970, p. 75; Ramsey 1975, pp. 35-36; Robertson 1986, pp. 53-70; Robertson 1991, p 301; Robertson 1995a, pp. 37-38; Robertson 1995b, pp. 13-24; Sass 1989, pp. 45-59; Shannon and Wolter 1990, p. 615; Singer 1981, p. 118; Singer and Kuhse 1987, pp. 13-14; Singer et al. 1990, pp. 3-4, 6-12, 14-24, 43-50, 59-60, 66-72, 96-106, esp. 252; Suarez 1990, pp. 627-635; Tauer diss. 1982; Tauer 1988, pp. 54-84; Tooley 1974, pp. 59, 64; Varmus 1999; Wallace 1989, pp. 23-53; Warnock Report 1984, pp. 27, 63; Weissman 2003; West 2001 and 2007; Wildes 2001, pp. 3-33; British House of Lords 2001; Commonwealth of Australia 1986; U. S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare 1979, p. 101; American Fertility Society 1986, 46: 27S; National Academy of Sciences 2002a,b; National Institutes of Health 1994, February 2 meeting, pp. 27, 31, 50-80, 85-87, 104-106, February 3 meeting, pp. 6-55, February 51 meeting, pp. 9-41; New Zealand 2003; Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 1986 and 1989; in addition, see also those references noted in the bibliography with the symbol "*").

If today the term "fertilization" does not include those human beings who are asexually reproduced, and if the term "conception" now even legally often means "implantation", then it would seem unwise to use such dubious phrases as "from the moment of conception", or "from the moment of fertilization". The same concerns apply to the use of the phrase "until natural death", since especially if used in legislation it would not cover those human beings who die "unnatural" deaths, e.g., suicide, murder, accidents, removal of food and hydration, etc.. (Irving 2007, pp.1-4; Irving 2008c, pp. 1-6; Irving 2008d, pp. 1-6; Irving 2008e, pp. 1-7; Irving 2008f, pp. 1-2).

Since asexually reproduced human embryos are now being used in experimental infertility treatments and implanted for reproductive purposes (American Fertility Society 1986, p. 27S; American Medical Association 1994, pp. 1-9; American Society of Reproductive Medicine 2000, pp. 873-876; American Society for Reproductive Medicine 2004, pp. S256-257; Commonwealth of Australia 1986; Commonwealth of Australia 2001; Barr 2003; Escriba et al. pp. 149-161; German National Ethics Council 2004, pp. 18, 19, 41; Gordon and Ruddle 1981, pp. 1244-1246; Hao et al. 2006, p. S513; Parens and Knowles 2003; Illmensee et al. 2006a, pp. 1112-1120 ; Illmensee et al. 2006b, pp. 1248-1260; Institute of Medicine and National Research Council 1989, pp. 25, 102ff; Irving 2004a, pp. 1-31; Irving 2008b, pp. 1-10; Katagiri et al. 2004, p. S10; Yoko Kato et al. 1999, p. 1823; A. Liu 2005, pp. 369-378; H.C.C. Liu et al. 2004, p. S308; H. Liu et al. 2005a, p. S368; H. Liu et al. 2005b, p. S370; National Science Foundation and U.S. Dept. of Commerce 2002; Neri et al. 2004, p. S281; Neri et al. 2005a, pp. S400-S401; Neri et al. 2005b, p. S384; New Zealand 2003; Schieve et al. 2004, pp. 1154-1163; Tesarik et al. 2003, pp. 677-681; The Twins Foundation 1994; Valiotis et al. 1993, p. 48; Wolfson 2003, pp. 376-396), as well as being used for research purposes, it would seem that the issues of abortion and research have merged and need to be addressed inclusive of each other as well as inclusive of both sexually and asexually reproduced human embryos. Otherwise, some teachings on sexually reproduced human beings will not apply to asexually reproduced human beings.

Next Page: D. Human Embryonic "Stem Cell" Research, Human Cloning, Human Genetic Engineering, Etc.
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