Pro-Life Academy every Tuesday and Thursday.
Organismally, our fundamental identity is the sum total of the instructions written into our DNA, those forty-six double-helical molecules contained in every cell of the body (half as many in the gametes).
To the left we see God’s artwork and ours. The top image is an end-on view into the helix of a B-DNA molecule. The bottom image is the Rose Window of York Minster. (Photo credits below).
Biology is beautiful.
When the issue of human identity arises in the context of development, many will posit the necessity for some arbitrarily defined anatomic or physiologic milestone-usually the presence of a brain capable of some degree of what we recognize as cognition. Such cognition is thought to be the hallmark of what constitutes an individual. Such reasoning is flawed biologically, philosophically, and theologically. We’ll consider the biological flaw today.
Every cell in the human body arises from the fertilized egg, known as the Zygote. Every cell receives a complete set of twenty-three Chromosome pairs, for a total of forty-six DNA chromosomes, each containing thousands of Genes. A gene is a segment of the chromosome whose four chemical bases called Nucleotides (A, G, C, or T) are arranged in a particular sequence, or Code. These typically are the instructions for building the structural and functional Proteins of the cell.
In a highly coordinated fashion, genes are turned on and off in various cells in such a manner that directs the development of each new human organism. The differences between each human being are the results of unique gene combinations. How each body forms is the result of that individual’s genetic composition.
DNA Molecules. Side and End-On Views
We know that cognition, the very hallmark looked to by many pro-choicers, is in some ways a function of genetics. Autistic individuals have certain patterns in cognition that are definitive of autism, such as repetitive behaviors, idiosyncratic interests, perseverations, etc. Schizophrenics have their definitive cognitive features, etc. So we know that many mental health issues are somehow a function of brain architecture and biochemistry, which have at their root genetic etiology, and quite probably interacting environmental cofactors as well.
Therefore, one’s essential organismal unique identity is written in one’s genes. That identity is present at fertilization.
But how do cells all inherit a complete set of chromosomes? Two answers: The Cell Cycle and Mitosis. We’ll only hit the highlights, but if one googles these terms along with the word “animation”, there are some great animations out there that bring the dynamic processes to life. Some are better than others, but it’s worth the look.
In the cell cycle, newly created cells double their size and contents in order to ready themselves for the next round of division. Part of this process includes making an extra set of chromosomes.
In mitosis, the nucleus of the cell divides, with a complete set of chromosomes being pulled to each of the ‘poles’ of the cell. Then the cell is cut in half at its ‘equator’ in a process called Cytokinesis.
Mitosis
To the left is a simplified illustration of mitosis showing only two chromosome pairs for ease of illustration (One blue and one yellow). Note how the cell appears at top left. After DNA synthesis during the cell cycle, the cell size has doubled, as have the number of chromosomes. Then, after mitosis and cytokinesis, the cell has split into two genetically identical cells.
Now we see where every cell in the body (except gametes) has a identical set of chromosomes.
This is important to know for a session we’ll have in a couple of weeks on reprogramming skin cells to become different kinds of cells as an answer to embryonic stem cell research.
If anything was not clear, let me know in the comments.
Okay, next time we’ll look at sperm and egg and consider some in vitro fertilization issues.
See you on Thursday for our next class.
.
.
.
Top Image via aaas.org
Bottom Image via uni-koeln.de
Coming Home 
Biology is beautiful.
I could not agree more – breathtakingly beautiful. The pictures you have chosen to use in your post illustrate that nicely.
This is so amazing, Gerard. When my oldest daughter studies biology next year I’m going to be pulling up all of these posts to help! 🙂
Your presentation of facts is impeccable. This is only to be expected from an experienced and capable biologist, who is also a genuinely outgoing man, with excellent communication skills, a devoted husband and father, who cares about the world he lives in.
The occasional opinionated side comment peppering the biology lesson is not even a decent tangent to the factual presentation. It is simply a preconceived notion which you must, somehow, work into the lesson.
Nothing you’ve said about DNA or cell processes either refutes or sustains the notion that “cognition is thought to be the hallmark of what constitutes an individual. Such reasoning is flawed biologically, philosophically, and theologically. We’ll consider the biological flaw today.” You haven’t shown any biological flaw.
We both know that in my opinion, which is no more humble than yours, a unique human individual, independent of the mother, does not exist until there is both cognition and metabolic independence. I won’t repeat those arguments, and I doubt you will repeat at length your reasons for disagreeing. There is nothing in the above biology lesson which clarifies the disagreement.
It seems to me that when you declare your science as being “at the service of the pro-life movement,” or at the service of the magisterium, which I believe you have come close to saying also, you put yourself in a position little different from a Russian scientist placing his skills at the service of the Supreme Soviet or the Central Committee.
It is possible that the Roman Church has the best grasp on the metaphysical dimensions of human existence available on earth, and of the metaphysical context in which the material universe exists. Then again, it may not. Science has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of either proposition. Likewise, it might have been arguable at one time that communism was a desirable and beneficial approach to organizing human communities — but that was not a proposition enhanced or disproved by science. The experiment was only beginning.
There are similar, and inescapable, problems with the climate change debate: the science is complex, and doing anything, if anything should be done, requires a political will to act, so the science is inevitably compromised by the unavoidable political debate, with both sides trying to make use of the data to support their political position.
You are entitled to your position, but so far there is precious little, if any, hard science which proves your social and spiritual preference to be correct. All you have done is line up undisputed facts around your preferences, the better to make them look good.
“a unique human individual, independent of the mother, does not exist until there is both cognition and metabolic independence”
The question of whether or not a unique human individual exists has nothing to do with his or her state of dependency. We all exist in states of dependency that vary throughout our lives, but our state of dependency does not diminish our status as unique human individuals in any way.
Furthermore, “cognition” is merely an acquired characteristic, which some human beings have and others do not, and which varies in degree from one human being to the next. Is someone who is asleep or in a coma not a unique human individual?
While the existence of a unique human individual is firmly established by biology, questions regarding what moral respect each individual deserves are philosophical rather than scientific in nature.
Dan, do you remember the basic plot of every Frankenstein movie? There is an inert body lying on a table, patched together from here and there. The mad scientist sparks some electricity through it, and it comes to life. Before, the body was a mass of decaying meat. After, it was a living being.
Nothing in biology works like that, and it is unlikely (thank God) that we will be able to bring bodies to life like that. There is a serious question whether such a body would have a soul even if it were alive. There is also serious question whether a body could live without a soul. Jewish sources state that without a nefesh, a body is putrefying meat, and without a nefesh chayyim, no animal body is human. Incidentally, the same rabbi who explained this to me admonished that abortion, although not murder, is bloodshed, and therefore prohibited, unless the mother’s life is in danger, in which case it is mandatory.
All this is background to my direct answer to your question: without cognition, what exists inside the mother is merely a physical framework which may become a human being. A body without a brain is no human being at all. Cognition is not merely “an” acquired characteristic, it is THE ESSENCE of who I am, who you are, who each of us is, even of our status as “made in God’s own image.” I don’t favor euthenasia, but once my mind is too far gone to give informed consent, it is my intention that no efforts in the nature of surgery or invasive treatment be made to save the biological body that remains. Before cognition, is the last time I accept the mother having the right to choose whether to have a baby or not.
As to dependence, I said, as many others have, metabolic dependence. The framework of tissue cannot live outside the mother. This responsibility cannot be transferred to any other person. Once a baby is born, anyone could take care of it. It is physically, metabolically, independent of the mother. If the mother has a heart attack, the baby does not die. But if a pregnant woman has a heart attack, the baby generally does die. Generalization to the ultimate possible fuzziness, does not clarify a specific reference.
Does the ESSENCE of who you are disappear when you are asleep, or if you go into a coma? Do you then cease to be the subject of natural rights? Clearly, one need not be immediately exercising cognition in order to deserve full moral respect.
I submit that the essence of who you are is a being with a rational nature. That rational nature may, however, exist in radical form.
A pre-cognitive (eg. embryonic) human being deserves full moral respect because it is an entity of precisely the same kind as you or me, albeit at a much earlier stage of his or her natural development. In fact, each of us was once an embryo, who then developed through the embryonic, fetal, infant, child, adolescent and adult stages.
If you are going to propose that an embryonic human does not deserve full moral respect, you are really proposing that not all human beings deserve moral respect. That means that you are denying that human beings are valuable because of the kind of entity that they are, and you are instead proposing that the moral value of human beings is derived from some acquired characteristic, that some human beings have and others do not, and which may vary in degree from one human being to the next.
As I mentioned, cognition is just such an acquired characteristic, which some human beings have and others do not, and which varies in degree from one human being to the next. You say “before cognition”, but when is that? Cognition is not something that just magically turns on at some instant. It develops gradually, and continues to develop well after birth. A mere quantitative difference cannot provide a justification for treating entities in radically different ways.
Furthermore, any acquired characteristic, such as cognition, comes in an infinite number of degrees, even among adult humans. If human beings deserve moral respect only because of qualities that come in varying degrees, it follows that humans should possess rights in varying degrees, and the rights of the superiors would trump those of the inferiors. You have tossed away entirely the notion of equality, and instead replaced it with some kind of utilitarian hierarchy of rights.
At this point we have reached a philosophical difference that cannot be resolved on the basis of logic alone. There are certainly those who hold fast to utilitarian philosophies. I disagree with them, but I cannot “prove” them wrong. I do, however, hasten to point out that many of their conclusions are extremely offensive to many people, and these offensive conclusions are logically required in order for their philosophy to be self-consistent.
“Cognition is not something that just magically turns on at some instant.”
How do you know? Do you have evidence it does not?
There is evidence that babies begin to learn in utero through the sense of hearing at 16 months.
See:
Can Babies Learn in Utero?
http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/inutero.html
Metabolic dependence requires the pregnant mother as a source of nutrition for baby before birth, but it is the babies own internal systems that actually foster growth as I understand it (as a non-scientist type that I am).
Correction:
That would be 16 weeks, not months, of course.
Dan, there is no question that we start from very different philosophical premises, and therefore, we cannot argue our way to agreement. I would suggest that it is very dangerous to pass criminal laws about matters on which large numbers of people disagree so strongly. God, of course, will judge in his own way as he sees fit, no matter what the civil law decrees. We can disagree about what God will do until God makes it clear, but neither of us can appeal the judgement of God. In the meantime, it is good that we keep talking to each other, not because one of us will win over the other easily, but because we have to share the world with each other.
I do not cease to be human when I am asleep, because there is a good deal of cognition during sleep, because I was a fully human life when I went to bed, and will be the same life, the same individual, with the same consciousness, when I wake up. However, as I’ve said before, if I am permanently in a coma, or in a state of advanced dementia, my physical body may be functional, but the essence of who I am as a person is gone or going fast. It is therefore my instruction to all concerned that when that happens, no special measures are to be taken to prolong the biological life of my body. No surgery, no IV’s, nothing but palliative treatment. True, we should be conservative about assuming that a coma is permanent, but there is such a thing.
The Penn State comments about when a fetus learns what in utero is very inconclusive. Basically, babies post-birth respond to familiar sounds, which means there was some recognition of sounds in utero. It is possible that the boundary line Roe v. Wade draws at the end of the 2nd trimester should be pushed back to 16 weeks, or thereabouts. Time and further research will tell.
“However, as I’ve said before, if I am permanently in a coma, or in a state of advanced dementia, my physical body may be functional, but the essence of who I am as a person is gone or going fast.”
really?
and how do we determine if a person is “permanently” comatose?
Is this possible? Do we decide to wait 1 year? 2 years? 10 years?
Are there variations of coma?
How accurate are these determinations?
What if we are wrong?
What do people who are in coma experience or not experience? How can we determine this?
Please provide answers to all of the above questions.
Many people who recovered from coma reveal that they could hear and understand EVERYTHING that was said but were incapable of responding.
How is the essence of what a person is, gone from a comatose body?
Who decides? The family? The doctor? An ethical panel?
What you seem to be saying is that a person is only a person based on their mind?
What about persons with severe Down Syndrome or severe cerebral palsy?
Do you advocate for the euthanizing of all persons with advanced dementia because that seems to be what you are doing here?
If you can’t answer any of the above questions, you haven’t considered even the tip of this moral iceberg that you’ve presented here.
I consider your position untenable. 😦
Yes Mary Catherine, really. I will leave detailed instructions, so that my family, friends, doctors, don’t have to anguish over the decision. Because there are so many unknown variables, I am perfectly content to leave to you the same decisions for yourself. For example, if you want to be kept on heart-lung machines indefinitely, even though some would argue that this is a financial burden to society, I would leave the decision to you, at least until all brain function is demonstrably gone. If I have been in a coma for more than two months, and doctors have no diagnosis or therapy which is likely to bring me out of it, no specific identifiable cause which could be repaired by a specified medical procedure, they may disconnect the feeding tube. I’ll probably have the heart-lung machine turned off after just 2-4 weeks. What I’m most concerned with is not the coma, but that if I have advanced dementia, they can feed me, but not with a tube, and if I have a heart attack, there will be no bypass surgery. Maybe aspirin, or maybe just a shot of morphine to ease the pain.
I would advocate some limited forms of euthanasia IF we had perfect judgement, but we don’t. Therefore, as I said above, I merely advocate that there be no invasive surgeries or long-term IV therapies. Just let nature take its course. I have met some people with severe cognitive disabilities, really severe, I might advocate the same for, e.g., no open heart surgery, no liver transplants, but I don’t expect that to be a realistic policy in the forseeable future.
There is no question that babies learn in utero. My experience with my own children indicates that they learn a great deal more language before they are born than is revealed by the study linked above. However, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of personhood. Equating personhood with conciousness, as Siarlys seems to be doing, is an example of body-self dualism. An excellent discussion of what is wrong with this position can be found here:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/dualistic-delusions–17
OK, I read it. I’m not convinced. As you yourself pointed out, we begin from different premises. Neither one of us can “prove” our premise by any kind of objective science. We each have impressions which reaffirm our own sense of righteousness.
Essentially, the position favored on this site is that as long as long strands of chemicals line up, in 23 pairs, inside a single cell, there is a human being present. I expect a bit more than that.
http://siarlysjenkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/would-you-like-your-baby-badly-damaged.html
I’m willing to err on the side of caution about exactly when there is an independent human being present. Since we disagree so profoundly, I oppose enshrining either of our respective views into law as mandatory. Parents make mistakes every day, and God only knows (literally) which parents are mistaken. So, no intervention by the criminal law, which is all that Roe v. Wade says. Different sets of parents will make different decisions.
Siarlys, your position is unreasonable. If you have any doubt that there is an independant human being present, then you should err on the side of caution and NOT on the side of death.
Like I have mentioned before, if you were given a box that you knew *might* contain a baby, and you were only 50 percent sure there was a baby there, would you bash the box in with a hammer, and have no responsibility in the matter?
If you were driving in the middle of the night ,and saw an object that you were 50 percent sure *might* be a person, would you swerve to miss the object, or would you aim directly for it?
Parents make mistakes every day, and God only knows (literally) which parents are mistaken.
When parents make mistakes that result in the death of their child, that is much more than a simple “oops”.
Siarlys, what is the reason you believe the fetus cannot feel pain or have consciousness before the 16th week? Does it have anything to do with the cerebral cortex? Do you believe that the cerebral cortex is required in order for consciousness to be present?
S, Another question out of curiosity. What are your religious beliefs? The only reason I ask is because you bring up God and the soul quite often- but I am not sure which God you believe in. I’d like to kind of get an idea of where you’re coming from when it comes to the religious aspect of your beliefs.
Dan, wonderful article!
“Essentially, the position favored on this site is that as long as long strands of chemicals line up, in 23 pairs, inside a single cell, there is a human being present. I expect a bit more than that.”
That statement is a gross misrepresentation of the position “favored” on this site. It is certainly a gross misrepresentation of my position. You need to do more background reading. Here is a good place to start:
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/daed.2008.137.1.23
If you don’t have a subscription to Daedalus and don’t want to pay for access the article, there is a free version available here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3671/is_200801/ai_n24392942/
“Essentially, the position favored on this site is that as long as long strands of chemicals line up, in 23 pairs, inside a single cell, there is a human being present. I expect a bit more than that.”
SJ,
I believe that I have taken pains on this blog to explain quite a bit more than your explanation here. All somatic cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but the cell that is a human organism in its earliest stage of development is one whose epigenetic factors orient it intrinsically toward development into the mature form of the organism.
Somatic cells have already been fated into certain cell types and lack this intrinsic ordering.