April 28, 2002

According to Dr. Michael Gazzaniga

According to Dr. Michael Gazzaniga

Britain does not grant moral status to an embryo until after 14 days, the time when all the twinning issues cease and the embryo must be implanted into the uterus to continue developing.

While I'm sure that decision doesn't prevent British women from aborting their children after 14 days, at least they're coming to a more sensible realization of the humanity of the unborn.

I find it interesting how scientists use terms like "blastocyst" and "zygote" to refer to fertilized human eggs. It is a way to disconnect morality from science. Most would have serious qualms ripping stem cells from unborn children, killing them in the process, but extracting stem cells from a 13 day-old blastocyst removes any sense of the beings humanity, making the destruction process easier to bear.

Now, let me directly confront one of Dr. Gazzaniga's points. He writes,

And we now know that in normal reproduction as many as 50 percent to 80 percent of all fertilized eggs spontaneously abort and are simply expelled from the woman's body.

The simple response is "So what?" The doctor's point doesn't address the humanity of those unborn. It only addresses the means of their demise.

Dr. Gazzaniga continues,

It is hard to believe that under any religious belief system people would grieve and hold funerals for these natural events. Yet, if these unfortunate zygotes are considered human beings, then logically people should.

The reason people didn't hold funerals for naturally aborted children is the lack of knowledge. Natural abortions may occur without the mother's knowledge. No knowledge, no ability to mourn. In those cases when a mother does know she miscarried, there is sadness. I've witnessed it first-hand in the case of close friends. I didn't see any joy in that household. I heard the bad news and pondered what could have been. What could that child have been when they grew up? What would that child have looked like? What kind of joy would that child have brought to the world? So people do grieve.

Dr. Gazzaniga's comments don't add to the debate over the humanity of a fertilized human egg. He goes on about how embryos divide and unite, but so what? That detail doesn't prove or disprove the humanity (and right to life) of that bundle of cells. Even hard line abortion advocates can't claim completely that an embryo isn't a human being. That has never stopped them from promoting abortion-on-demand. But if you're not a hardcore pro-lifer, at least you should err on the side of caution and consider the possibility that that blastocyst, zygote, whatever, is a person whose rights must be protected. That means banning abortion and scientific procedures where embryos are used as cell farms.

"Zygotes and People Aren't Quite the Same"