Jack Haven

"On Human Beginnings"

We all accept that murder is wrong. It is evil to take the life of another human being. Sometimes, we qualify that statement with exceptions, but these exceptions would not exist if we did not believe it were wrong to take a human life. Taking a human life in self-defense is only considered appropriate because one fears for one's own life or another person's. In taking the life of a would-be murderer, one is not considered to be a murderer oneself. We take this same stance on capital punishment. Our government kills murderers, yet we do not generally consider it wrong that they do so. Taken together, considering the reasons for which we make these exceptions, we believe firmly that no human being has the right to take another's life.

But we do disagree. What you consider to be murder, we do not. We believe that taking the life of another human being is wrong, but there is much contention on when exactly the life of a human being begins. You, who call yourselves pro-life, say that human life begins at the moment the sperm cell fuses with the ovum to create a zygote, one human cell, genetically unique from every other human cell that is or has ever been. Many of those who call themselves pro-choice would argue that human life begins at birth. Certainly, this is the idea that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proposes: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" (Art. 1, emphasis mine). The definition of human rights is not clear. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court concluded:

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 as to the answer.

Abortion is controversial because we do not know when human life begins. If there can be no agreement on this point, then this problem may never be resolved. We all hope that, some day, the advances of science will allow us to know, once and for all time, when it is that human life first comes to be. We hope this because we believe it is the only way of resolving this debate.

We deceive ourselves. We can know, right now, when human life begins. In order to see it clearly, we must divest ourselves of our preconceived notions and maudlin sentimentality. We may very well love babies—all of us do—but we cannot continue to attach the emotions we feel at the sight of a newborn child in the arms of his beaming mother to that being about whom we must make a legal, moral, and universal decision. We cannot continue to apply selective morality on this issue. The Supreme Court recognized this as well:

When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained [410 U.S. 113, 158] in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command? (Roe v. Wade, emphasis mine)

Many pro-life stances also make exceptions for the children of mothers who have been raped. If a fetus is a human life, however, there is no basis upon which we can make the argument that sacrificing the life of one human being is a suitable exchange for the life of another. With regard to murder, all of our exceptions allow for the killing of one human being by other only if the human being who is killed had earlier put the life of another at risk. The exceptions for abortion rights show no such logical continuity. If a fetus is a human being, and taking the life of a human being is wrong, then to take the life of a human being in order to avoid putting at risk the life of the mother or to salvage the sensibilities of a rape victim appears to show a very feeble regard for the value of a human life.

Resolving this issue begins by defining human life. Let us take the example of those who argue that human life begins at conception. If human life begins at conception, then a human being can be any person that we see in the world as well as a small, undifferentiated human cell, containing 46 chromosomes. While adult human cells tend to be specialized for various functions, we can assume that an undifferentiated human cell will be able to reproduce into every cell that a human body should ever need, since we have seen this happen billions upon billions of times over the course of human history. We can conclude that a human is at least one cell containing 46 chromosomes and the genetic information required to form an entire human being. While such a being grows inside of a full-grown human, to remove it would be considered murder, since it would be the killing of a living human person.

This definition may be objected to by cancer patients. Cancer is a disease whereby human cells, with 46 chromosomes and all the genetic information required to form a human being, begin to reproduce very quickly, much as an embryo does. They form a large growth within the human body. The patient can be saved if the tumor is removed in time. If it is not, the cancer begins to invade other organs and spread throughout the body until the patient dies. Cancer, we all agree, should be removed when it is discovered. We believe this because cancer has the potential to kill the patient within which it resides. Removing the cancerous growth, however, must be considered murder, using our current definition. The body does not fight cancer because the immune system, which uses chemical signatures to detect and attack cells that are not human but have trespassed into the body, does not recognize cancer cells as alien. They are human cells, like a liver, a heart, a brain, or an embryo. If a human cell is the same as a human being, then it is ethically wrong to remove a malignant tumor from a patient who wants it removed.

Of course, this is not what pro-life activists are saying. Cancer is very different from an embryo. An embryo does not normally put the life of the pregnant mother in danger. Cancer always does. This is not contested. Cancer puts the life of any person who has it in danger, but cancer does not begin as cancer. A cancer is a tumor, and tumors can be either malignant or benign. A benign tumor begins as a growth that will neither invade nor metastasize into other organs. Unless it grows to a size large enough that it can cause damage to surrounding tissue, a benign tumor will generally not endanger the patient. Carrying one, however, can be a risk. Complications occur, and the tumor that was once benign can undergo malignant transformation, becoming cancer. Carrying anything inside the body that behaves out-of-sync with the body's normal behavior can be a dangerous enterprise. This is why tumors are generally removed. Although a benign tumor, like an embryo, will not generally endanger the patient, the danger, in both cases, cannot be denied.

Now, you protest, a tumor will never become a human being, whereas an embryo, if it is fortunate, will eventually be born into a human being. Potentiality is a difficult argument to make. Many embryos die in pregnancy. Many pregnancies kill both mother and fetus. Some embryos become malformed and become tumors rather than babies, a particularly unsettling phenomenon for a mother who is expecting a child that never comes. The child of a rape victim may become an important scientist. The cancer in a patient's womb may keep her from giving birth to a criminal. We cannot account for potentialities because we are ignorant of the future. If we were to perform every action by considering possible futures, we would become wholly unable to do anything. How can we be sure that an inmate on death row will not be a helpful member of society if we let him go? The infamous Son of Sam is a serial killer who converted to Christianity and has begun to preach from his prison cell. We do not keep him there because we have considered the possible future wherein he is a pulpit preacher leading lost sheep back to God and have found it faulty. We keep him in prison because we understand that ethics cannot be based on potentials. We can only make ethical decisions based on what we can know, and none of us can know the future.

We cannot, therefore, be certain that a fetus will become a human child. We can, however, agree that the point at which a fetus becomes a human child lies somewhere between conception and birth. What is this point? The zygote cannot be this point. A zygote is one undifferentiated human cell. It reproduces at a high rate of speed, and it makes many mistakes. Up to 78% of conceptions fail before the mother is even aware that she has become pregnant, and about 15% of confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage (Roberts & Lowe). If the zygote were a human being, that is, if human life began at conception, then the very act of reproduction would be tantamount to a mass holocaust of innocent life. Human life cannot begin at conception.

We can concede that human life does not begin at birth. If this were true, then premature birth could not be possible. The normal human gestation period is about nine months, or 40 weeks. Humans require that amount of time to grow from a zygote to a fully-developed baby. If human life could only begin at birth, and birth is supposed to occur at nine months, then we must waive this period of development for babies unfortunate enough to have been born at eight or seven months. These babies are not fully developed, and they generally require spending a significant amount of time within an incubator while they are closely monitored for the myriad of complications from which they are likely to suffer. They are given intensive care to ensure that the baby survives. The baby, despite all this, remains a human being. It is a viable, independent organism, and it will usually survive, though often with some minor, chronic problems.

There is a limit beyond which a baby cannot be born prematurely without dying. This limit, the point after which an infant has a good chance of surviving outside its mother's womb, is called the limit of viability. The limit of viability has dropped over the last two centuries, as neonatal intensive care has advanced, to around 24 weeks. Before that time, the fetus is dependent on its mother to such an extent that it would be practically unable to survive outside the womb. We can, I believe, place the point at which human life begins between these two endpoints: the beginning of the embryonic stage, at day 14, and the limit of viability, at week 24.

The limit of viability provides an interesting assessment of what it means to be human. Before the issue of abortion became so controversial, human beings were generally considered to be those humans who we can take notice of in the outside world. Walking, crawling, breathing, sweating humans who can talk, play, sing, goo, giggle, and laugh. A common characteristic among them is that they can act individually from one another. Certainly, babies need their parents to survive, but their parents need not be around them at all times to ensure that they live. Babies can be taken care of by grandparents, friends, even nannies. They can digest food. They can breathe. Their hearts can beat without outside chemical indicators. Biologically speaking, they are viable, independent organisms that are not tied to any other organism for their nutrition.

The same cannot be said for fetuses. Fetuses receive most of their nutrients directly from the mother via the umbilical cord. The chorus within the body cavity guides many of the developing fetus's biological rhythms. Inside of the amniotic fluid, the fetus cannot breathe for itself; it requires a supply of oxygen from its parent. There is a special class of symbiosis that deals precisely with this sort of biological behavior: It is called parasitism.

Parasitism has a negative connotation, but it is a very common way that nature behaves. The biological interaction between a parasite and its host is ethically neutral. The parasite attaches itself to the host, much like the zygote attaches itself to the uterine wall. It then begins to extract nutrients from its host, much like the embryo and fetus extract nutrients from their mothers. Parasites, despite popular belief, do not kill their hosts. Organisms that take part in parasitic symbiotic relationships that end in the host's death are called parasitoids. True parasites differ in that they extract only those nutrients they will need to survive and develop without draining the host. In fact, throughout a period of symbiosis between a parasite and its host, the damage to the host is generally negligible. As with a fetus, the presence of a parasite is always a risk for the host, but in most cases there are few complications, and the host, like the mother, comes away from the experience unscathed.

All placental mammals, including human beings, go through a phase in their gestation when they are parasitic. This is a natural development strategy that allows us to exit our mothers fully developed. Humans are among the only mammals whose offspring are not precocious at or near birth, but from birth we are able to survive without biological stimulus from other organisms of our species. This seems to be the point at which we truly become human: the point at which we stop needing the parasitic relationship with our mothers in order to live. At this moment, this point must lie near the limit of viability, which, due to our current technological capabilities, is the 24th week of gestation.

The limit of viability has varied in the past. It will certainly vary in the future. This will not require that we modify the definition of a human being as a viable, independent organism. This will, however, require that we change the date that human life can be considered to begin. One day, perhaps, we will have artificial wombs into which we can place unwanted fetuses. On this day, perhaps, the limit of viability may extend early into the embryonic stage. For the moment, however, considering the viability of the fetus and our inability—despite our best wishes—to guess at potentialities that may never occur, we must stop calling conception the beginning of human life. Having 46 chromosomes does not make one a human; if it did, not only would cancer patients have to come up with rational support for the atrocity of removing a tumor, but sufferers of Down syndrome would be sorely left out of a humanity they deserve just as much as we do. We cannot call birth the beginning of human life either, since it is clearly possible to be born much earlier than after nine months.

Most of all, we must begin to observe this situation more clearly. A great many of these facts are often concealed only because they sound terrible to our love of babies. Calling a fetus a parasite can be judged as a horrific thing to do. I may be seen as a monster for saying such a thing. But reason does not choose sentimentality over truth. We must consider what it means to be a human being, and we must make these judgments with intelligence and care before we make poor political decisions on these very important issues. If the abortion controversy is ever to be resolved, we must first stop screaming at each other. We must open our eyes.

Works Cited

Roberts C. J., & C. R. Lowe. "Where have all the conceptions gone?" The Lancet 305.7905 (1975): 498-499.

Roe v. Wade. No. 70-18. Supreme Ct. of the US. 22 Jan. 1973.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Art. 1.