What a dangerous topic to write about! Those of you who already knew I was crazy will not be surprised, those of you who didn’t know, but suspected may not be convinced.
I understand the emotions on both sides of this issue and the difficulty we all have in attempting to recognize arguments presented by the opposing camps because they seldom overlap in approach. I also understand that for many people, their religious beliefs define their positions here and I choose not to discuss those issues, because I believe that one’s personal religious views do not afford a path to a universal legislative imperative. I do not believe that Hindu’s should have the right in this country to bar the slaughtering of cows, nor Jews the right to prohibit the sale of cheeseburgers. Each individual will choose to live their lives along the precepts of their own belief systems.
The recent oral argument at the Supreme Court has alerted me to one specific issue in determining the legal “allowable” point in time for accessing Abortion services. My discussion here is to try to layout some rational, discernable views on that one topic only: the demarcation of the onset of human life.
As Humans we have always believed that in certain circumstances, we have a right to kill. We step on insects, poison them, swat them and electrocute them with bug zappers. Even the most constrained dietary adherents among us have no issue in killing plants. We allow ourselves the right to kill animals for food, kill horses when they are injured, dogs when they are old and pets when they are unwanted.
We justify the right of humans to kill each other in war, in self-defense or as a result of legally-approved judicial retribution. We justify our right to “pull the plug” when on-going life is no longer sustainable.
So, for this dialogue, I choose to dispense with any discussion on whether we have the “right” to take a life.
The issue I choose to examine then is: “When does Human Life begin”? I make this distinction based on the above argument. Since we have no prohibition on ending life for plants and animals based solely on our personal discretion, then, when do we, as a society need to step in and say “no” to ending a life?
Let’s start by looking at the two extremes.
Subsequent to birth, we, within our current Social Contract have agreed, that killing a new-born or growing child is unacceptable. There may be a small fringe element that still holds that a poorly formed infant, with short life expectancy might be euthanized, but I choose to discount that fringe as holding little value in this discussion.
We are a little less clear on the other extreme. Some might argue that a one-cell zygote, fertilized by a sperm is already a live being, and should be afforded the full rights of any other Human. However, we know that a large proportion of fertilized eggs spontaneously abort or never begin to divide, and we do not, at least now, consider that event criminally culpable for the mother. There, once again, may be a fringe element that believes that even preventing fertilization of an egg is an unforgivable act, but I choose to discount that fringe as holding little value in this discussion also.
Having now defined the termini of debate we can begin to explore other points in development that might be considered.
Some might recall from HS Bio the phrase: “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny”. It is a succinct recitation of one of the basic premises of modern biologic science, that each living being on this planet has evolved in some way from those living beings who preceded it. Even Human embryos demonstrate this during development. We know that humans evolved from fish and other vertebrates because human embryos develop gill slits and a tail, both of which usually get resorbed during development. Early embryos are difficult to discriminate from chicken or turtle embryos.
So, following that logic, when does the developing embryo move from having the “potential” to develop into a human being and become an actual human being?
Some would argue that the earliest demarcation point is when the heart starts beating. The 6-week-old fetus is the size of little pea and shaped like a sea creature with a tail. At six weeks there is no structure that you would recognize as a heart. There is no organ, no mass of definable cells, no pulsating pump; rather there is the beginning of a “flutter” of electrical impulses in a group of cells that will, over time begin to form what will become the pacemaker of the heart. It is this electrical flutter that can be detected by an ultrasound. There is no blood to pump, no web of tubes to pump through, and no pump.
The six-week-old fetus also has a brain tube that will eventually develop into a brain and rudimentary structures that will become eyes and ears. We seem, culturally to place great emphasis on the heart because we have attributed emotions to it; but in reality, it is no more important to life than the liver, the kidneys, the blood, the lungs or the brain. It thus becomes quite difficult for me to super-value the development of one specific organ over another. It is also true that, again culturally, we acknowledge that humans can lose their viability as “people” and, in certain circumstances allow for the “plug to be pulled” while the heart still beats.
What about demarking the onset of Human Life at the time that a fetus can “feel pain”? There has been some effort to claim that when a fetus can feel pain, that they have reached a point at which their lives should be protected. So, when do fetuses have the capacity to feel pain?
The first issue is to determine what we actually mean when we use the term “pain”. It is not just the stimulus/response of a muscle resulting in movement but rather requires the brain to detect and react to a challenge. Prior to 24 weeks after fertilization, the connections between sensory nerves and the brain as well as the centers of the brain that actually process the signals between those sensory nerves and the brain simply do not exist. So, 24 weeks of gestation might be one defined point to consider when trying to set a fixed point for the determination of life. Claiming that “pain” can be detected earlier is really, scientifically invalid.
Maybe we can choose a point in time related to memory? Can we consider an embryo with no ability to store a memory as being human? General consensus from those who study this, is that fetal memories begin, at the very earliest stages at around 30 weeks, although those memories are very basic and may only be important for bonding between neonate and mother.
Memories are stored in a specific area of the brain called the hippocampus. All mammals have a hippocampus, so the presence of one does not distinguish humans from other animals. Although early progenitors of the hippocampus begin to form at around 12 weeks, the development is not sufficient to allow for memory storage until the third trimester and the hippocampus continues to develop for 24 months AFTER birth. Memories from the earliest stages of life and in the womb are extremely rare and quite limited.
Without language it is difficult to identify and maintain a memory, and the absence of required neurological structures make it difficult to claim that any effects from what might be considered “painful” would have anything but a very short duration.
Another measurable point in time is what has become to be known as “viability”. This has come to represent that time at which medical intervention can remove a developing fetus from the mother and, with appropriate medical technology, allow the infant to continue to grow and thrive and reach infancy.
I think we need to acknowledge that for Humans, the issue of viability is more complex than it is for most other animals. The newborn human, even at full term, is totally incapable of maintaining its life without intensive support from other humans. Feeding, cleaning , motility, comfort and independence don’t come for a number of years (some parents might say that even their most successful children never achieve full independence from them; but that is a topic for another day).
Other animals, marsupials for instance, also require parental support after birth, but for most, the newborn baby is able to walk, eat and keep itself clean almost immediately.
Perhaps if human heads were not so large, gestation would have continued for a longer period, but we accept the fact that a newly born human is a living being even if it needs extensive help from its parents or from medical services.
This is a clear point of demarcation. If the fetus can “live” by itself outside the womb, then that might be a good point to use to mark the beginning of life. The issue here, of course is that this is not a clearly defined point. As medical science progresses, the point moves. If we develop the ability to move an embryo or fetus from one mother to another surrogate-mother, then it moves again. Based on the health status and sustainability of any single developing fetus that point in time may vary by quite a number of weeks. Nevertheless, the point of viability today is still, in most cases at about 22-24 weeks.
One final potential point of differentiation between humans and other animals was described by Carl Sagan in “The Dragons of Eden”. He argues that the difference between human beings and other animals is “retrievable memory”. The unique ability of humans to “think” is the ability for us to choose, at our own will, to remember different things that we have learned, to use discernment on how to accept or reject each of those pieces of information, to assemble them into cogent thoughts and to make decisions based on that construction. Other animals can react to stimuli, but there is scant evidence that they can choose to organize their thoughts and to plan actions based on rationalization.
Within the last 10 years scientists have identified a region in the brain called the “lateral frontal pole prefrontal cortex” that is unique to human beings, and which is specifically related to these unique human abilities. This area does not develop structurally until at least 30 weeks of gestation and continues to develop for 25 years after birth.
So, at least here, there is a clear distinction between humans and other animals, the point at which the ability to think, to remember, to create language, the assemble thoughts and memories begins is at about 30 weeks after fertilization.
I see a common thread among these points in time as discussed above; whether we look at the point in time that sensory nerves can link to the brain, when memories can be formed and stored, when a fetus is “viable”, and when the developing fetus obtains the distinctive abilities that differentiate it as human from other animals, there is a very similar point in time – somewhere between about 24 and 30 weeks.
Choosing this point as a demarcation line for acceptable Abortion Healthcare may be too late for some, too early for others, but it is at least definable.