When reading or listening to the current arguments in support of cloning and the use of embryos for research, you immediately encounter arbitrary criteria masquerading as science and logic. As Professor Robert George of Princeton University has noted, the mental gymnastics required to support the destruction of embryonic human beings for research, "fails the test of reason. It requires supporters to argue that embryos are not human beings – which is contrary to fact – or that embryonic human beings are not persons – which is contrary to logic."
The arguments against personhood at conception offer particularly stunning examples of muddled thinking and convoluted logic. For example, to say that a single-celled human being at conception is no larger than the dot at the end of this sentence is to simply give a description based on appearance. It is not an explanation or definition of what this human being is. Aristotle 2400 years ago noted that to obtain a true definition of what something is, you must discover what its powers are and what it is meant to be. To judge by appearance alone is both ignorant and perilous. Genocide, slavery, ethnic cleansing - history offers abundant witness to the brutal injustice that inevitably results from arbitrary judgements.
At conception each of us becomes a self-possessed human person. We possess our own future; it belongs to us uniquely and no one else. No matter our size, present within us at conception is the complete design of what we are meant to be and a guiding force or impetus that brings that development about. This power and the information necessary to direct it must be present at conception in order for development to occur.
Personhood is not dependent on whether one is currently manifesting all one’s powers or not. It is not a temporary state that comes and goes with our degree of functionality. A machine could conceivably be designed to look like us, and mimic numerous human traits, but functional mimicry is not personhood. Indeed, there are already machines that actually function more efficiently than we do at specific tasks, but I seriously doubt your vacuum cleaner ever wonders about the fairness of it all. You, however, are intrinsically oriented toward that unique human characteristic, evident even in young children, to desire and reflect on transcendent realities like justice and truth.
Our dignity at conception is often obscured by labels assigned to stages of development such as zygote, blastocyst, fetus, or infant. But, an embryo is not less of a human being than an infant, anymore than a child is less of a human being before puberty than after. At every stage we are whole human beings. This problem with labels is not new. In fact, Abraham Lincoln used to illustrate it by humorously asking how many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? The answer is four, because it makes no difference if you call it a leg, it is still a tail. In the same way, how we label a stage of development doesn’t change the fundamental nature or reality of that which we label. Tragically, language has often been engineered for the very purpose of dehumanizing those who are different, who don’t look like us, or those targeted for exploitation.
Nor does the inability to perceive personhood in others serve as proof that it must not be present. One’s own lack of clarity does not alter objective reality. Ironically, those who would deny personhood under these circumstances, fancy themselves more sophisticated than their historical counterparts, who condoned atrocities based on appearance. However, they display the same shallow mentality when it comes to contemporary stem cell debates. Once again we witness ignorance and utilitarian motives corrupting what is both rationally and morally obvious, that we can not earn for ourselves, or bestow on others what is already ours by nature.
Our culture’s eclipse of reason has resulted in untold suffering and a relentless violation of inalienable rights. The unborn, the elderly, the disabled are all targets of these self-appointed final arbiters of personhood. Inevitably, none of us are immune from their arbitrary judgements. Healing the culture must begin with acknowledging that at conception, a unique, self-possessed human person comes into being. Their future, as well as ours, depends on it.
Life Principles Reflections is a quarterly Email commentary developed to give reflections on life issues. Every three months articles are published online featuring a staff or a guest writer.
