Life starts after 14 days, say Anglicans

The Age (Australia) ^ | November 5, 2003 | Peta Rasdien

[nickcarraway]

Life does not begin when sperm meets egg, but 14 days after, according to the head of the Anglican Church in Australia.

Primate Peter Carnley told the Fertility Society of Australia in Perth yesterday this meant objections to IVF, genetic testing and stem cell research should fall away.

Archbishop Carnley said that until it was implanted in a womb lining, a fertilised egg was not a human life but rather a genetically novel kind of cell.

The fertilised egg must also pass the point that it could split to become an identical twin, which was at about 14 days. After that, the embryo should be accorded the status of an individual human with rights to care, protection and life.

Dr Carnley's position clearly contradicts that of the Catholic Church, which holds that life begins when an egg is fertilised.

But Dr Carnley said the debate about the beginning of life within the Christian faith did not come to that view until 1869, when Pius IX declared all abortion was wrong from the beginning of conception.

Dr Carnley argued that scientific knowledge had moved forward since then and must be taken into account.

If conception was defined as the meeting of gametes - egg and sperm - then the cloned sheep Dolly was not conceived, because Dolly was the product of cell nuclear transfer, where the ovum nucleus was replaced by DNA from an adult cell.

"I think it is now clear that we must begin to think of conception less as a moment and more in gradual and continuous terms as a process," Dr Carnley said.

He said since 1984 Anglican moral theology had concluded that conception was a 14-day process and this helped shape legislation around the world.

"Given that twinning can occur up to the 14th day of this process, it is not logically possible to talk of the conception of a unique human individual prior to the completion of this process.

"Each of us can say that we came to be in the sense that we were each conceived, as a potential human individual, 14 days after the fertilisation of an ovum, not before." He said the natural 60 per cent wastage of ova during IVF procedures need not be considered the killing of conceived human individuals.

"We do not have some 70,000 frozen people on ice at various places around Australia," he said.

Embryo experimentation and stem cell research were also morally acceptable.

"If there is a utilitarian argument for the possible benefit to mankind of experimentation on embryos, this could be tolerated in a controlled way under licence up until the 14th day in a way that after the 14th day it would not," he said.

"Stem cell research becomes also thinkable, for stem cells are harvested well within the 14th day period."

[supercat]

Would you consider a developing acorn on a tree to be an organ or an organism?

[MHGinTN]

Have you ever opened up a peanut? When you break the outer shell, then open up the meat and look, at one end of the edible portion is a tiny peanut plant. Try it, it is revealing, cat!

I would also point out to my friend that to crush and dispose of the raw peanut is to end the life of an individual peanut plant at that individual plant's early age. If we look at the individuality of a zygote, to purposely kill that living zygote we have ended the lifetime already begun for the human being that is that zygote at that age in its lifetime continuum already begun.

Lastly, I would note for my friend that neither of us can say at what developmental age the human soul is present with the human body such that we can precisely say the soul was not present with that body moments before that instance. Since the scriptural reading states that God knits us together - body and soul, I would take Him at His word, that He is knitting together body and soul and I ought not be for disposing of His 'yarn'.

[MHGinTN]

Trick question with several nuances, cat. First, human reproductive process is different from the plant in fundamentally profound ways. Second, the acorn is scientifically already an individual member of the oak genus. We call the acorn a seed, but to apply the same word to the embryo before or after implantation is an erroneous analogy.

If a person is prosecuted for destroying a condor egg, it is the reality of the egg being a living organism and member of the condor species that triggers the illegality of destroying it.

[supercat]

Have you ever opened up a peanut? When you break the outer shell, then open up the meat and look, at one end of the edible portion is a tiny peanut plant. Try it, it is revealing, cat!

I am well aware that plant seeds are relatively advanced products of sexual reproduction. They are not, however, as a matter of course treated as individual organisms.

Are you aware of any farmer who would look at a field of corn and consider the number of corn plants out there to be the number of stalks plus the number of seeds? While such a tally might in some sense be biologically accurate, any bookkeeper who recorded things that way would be considered insane.

There are a number of events that have to come together to produce a human being. Although the determination of the genetic makeup is an important landmark, it is but one of the necessary steps. If I mark five numbers on a Little Lotto playslip, I have determined the unique combination of numbers that will be on any ticket purchased with that playslip. I do not, however, have a lottery ticket. Even though I will have all the 'information' needed for a lottery ticket, I won't actually have a ticket until I combine that playslip with (1) $1, and (2) an Illinois Lottery participating retailer. Until those latter ingredients are added, all I have is a playslip.

[cpforlife.org]

Joe:

I see the answer in your post: "The only thing anyone can safely say the simplest - people are people from conception until death."

Agreed, either all human life is sacred and must be respected, or no human life is sacred and can be used and discarded for any reason—or no reason at all.

And the only way this possibly can become the norm again is with a new generation of Christians fully educated on the sanctity of life. See THE MISSING KEY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." - H.G. Wells

[MHGinTN]

"Are you aware of any farmer who would look at a field of corn and consider the number of corn plants out there to be the number of stalks plus the number of seeds? While such a tally might in some sense be biologically accurate, any bookkeeper who recorded things that way would be considered insane." Your analogy is better applied to the moment following birth, rather than the earliest age along the continuum that is an individual organism.

[supercat]

If a person is prosecuted for destroying a condor egg, it is the reality of the egg being a living organism and member of the condor species that triggers the illegality of destroying it.

From my understanding of avian biology, by the time a fertilized avian egg hatches, the embryo inside has already (1) passed the point-of-no-return in its development, and incidently (2) been packaged with everything necessary to develop into a hatchling, needing nothing more than an atmosphere which is at the right temperature and, FWIU, occasional slight physical motion. As such, it is without a doubt a self-contained organism.

Different species of plants and animals have enough differences in their development cycles that analogies tend to be imprecise. Nonetheless, my impression is that nearly all sexually-reproducing species produce offspring by first building a "scaffolding" which will later be discarded, and then commencing work on the organism within. In some sexually-reproducing series, the scaffolding is produced before fertilization (e.g. in avians) while in others it is produced afterward, but in almost all species it is produced somehow (not sure about marsupials).

I dunno, I guess I'd like to think that personhood is something that can't really be produced in a test tube. And so maybe my other beliefs are conformed to that (rightly or wrongly). Besides, as I've noted elsewhere, if we both agree that a 40-week fetus is a baby, why not focus efforts on points of agreement rather than disagreement?

[AnalogReigns]

Anglicans....hmmmm let's see....Aren't these the folks who in the American version just consecrated a perverse sodomite Bishop?

Ahh yes, such moral authority....

[supercat]

Your analogy is better applied to the moment following birth, rather than the earliest age along the continuum that is an individual organism.

There are a number of key developmental steps in the development of sexually-reproduced organisms of various species. Although many of the steps are common to all or almost all sexually-reproduced species, not all species perform the steps in the same order.

The step which seems most significant in discussing most plants is germination. Whereas an ungerminated seed may remain viable for a significant length of time without developing or growing in any way, once a seed germinates it must from that point forward continue developing or else die.

I would posit that most if not all other sexually-reproduced species reach a similar point in development, though in some it happens earlier than others. In the case of most plants, it doesn't occur until after the decendent organism has left the host; in humans, it happens earlier.

I guess I would say that an unimplanted embryo is like an ungerminated seed--it has the ingredients for life, but is waiting for a stimulus to start the real development in motion. As such, it is neither fully alive nor dead; rather, it is in stasis awaiting further developments.

[hocndoc]

Yes, there are thousands of people frozen. And yes, there are millions of people in their mothers' fallopian tubes and uteri, where those people have not implanted yet. They are Homo sapiens sapiens, just as I am.

And no, Dolly was not concieved unless you count her mother/identical twin's conception. She was generated in a lab by stem cell nuclear transfer cloning. But, from the quickening of that first cloned embryo cell - the zygote equivalent according to the President's Bioethics Council - she was a sheep,

The cells of these people are coveted by researchers who desire to use the toti- and pleuri-potency of the cells that make up the human body at this stage of development.

[MHGinTN]

"... but is waiting for a stimulus to start the real development in motion." Actually, as the embryo breaks out of the cell membrane it has occupied during the transit from fallopian tube (where it was conceived) to the uterus, the embryo has already differentiated its cells to the point of having specialized cells that release chorionic growth hormone, which signals the woman's uterus organ to build capillaries in the embryo's location. The embryo desolves uterine epithelial cells and burrows into the lining of the woman's organ.

I appreciate your opinion on similarities between plant seeds and human embryos, but it is not scientifically supported since the zygote, as soon as it has formed two more cells, begins to differentiate via methylation process that can be defined as either mitosis generated by the male provided chromosomal mass or the female chromosomal provided mass, yet the director of mitosis is the 46 chromosome individual already living along its lifetime.

[PayrollOffice]

If conception was defined as the meeting of gametes - egg and sperm - then the cloned sheep Dolly was not conceived, because Dolly was the product of cell nuclear transfer, where the ovum nucleus was replaced by DNA from an adult cell.

The slopes get ever more slippery.

[supercat]

I appreciate your opinion on similarities between plant seeds and human embryos, but it is not scientifically supported since the zygote, as soon as it has formed two more cells, begins to differentiate via methylation process that can be defined as either mitosis generated by the male provided chromosomal mass or the female chromosomal provided mass, yet the director of mitosis is the 46 chromosome individual already living along its lifetime.

Well, we have this difference of opinion and I doubt either of us will change. I believe the milestones surrounding implantation are both physically and morally significant; you apparently attach less significance to them. To my mind, there's a significant difference between an entity which may or may not develop into a viable human baby (and whose failure to turn into a human baby would not be considered a sign of any problem), and one which is clearly expected to turn into a viable human baby in the absense of either some disruption of the process or something going severely wrong.

[supercat]

BTW, my understanding of the "rhythm" method of contraception is that it's intended to maximize the likelihood that in the event that an ovum gets fertilized it will not manage to implant successfully. Doesn't that mean people practicing the rhythm method are actively trying to kill any embryos they might conceive?

[hocndoc]

Actually, it's possible for the embryo to divide to make three and even four individuals.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/WIREidentical_quads020326.html
http://www.identicaltriplets.com/

http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/19991104/19991104s2.htm


The embryo, possibly until about 14 days of gestational age but probably only until the 8 cell stage, is made of cells that are each able to divide and differentiate. That does not make the embryo less of a human.

Will the donor for the first human clone be any less human before the somatic cell nuclear transfer than he is the day after?

[hocndoc]

Before the cell nucleus is placed within an emptied oocyte cell or stimulated to become totipotent zygote-equivalent, that is a normal body cell and nothing else. Just as the oocyte was a specialized cell of a woman before activated or quickened by a sperm cell or scientific manipulation.
And the donor is fully human, even if potentially - but not yet actually - capable of infinite twinnings.

The nature of the cloned entity is explored in the report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Chapter 3 On Terminology:
http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/cloningreport/terminology.html

[mcg1969]

OK, excuse my poor terminology. Substitute "embryo" in for "zygote" and that's what I meant to say.

And what a nice backhanded suggestion that I have some sort of ulterior motive for choosing a position that differs from yours. You must be fun at parties. Since it's rarely productive to argue with people who use such tactics, I think I'll cease.

[hocndoc]

You are confused about the nature of a human being - what he or she is. The cells from a biopsy are not capable of development from an embryo to a fetus and then a neonate and later a Freeper.
The zygote - including a theoretical cloned human zygote - is capable of that development unless he or she dies.

[MHGinTN]

As you're around FR longer, you will come to realize that I'm a rather intolerant person. The homosexual 'in your face' activists and 'I have a court approved right to hire a serial killer to off a fetus' ghouls defending the indefensible have proven to my satisfaction that they deserve no comity as they seek to destroy this nation's healthy taboo structure. Suit yourself poster.

[hocndoc]

The sperm cell is at the end of differentiation, a highly specialized cell which only contains the genetic material of the male who generates it. It is a motile cell which can be removed from the originating body without the death of the male. The sperm cell will not differentiate further and will not live more than a couple of days, even in the most perfect environment.

When the sperm nucleus fuses with the oocyte nucleus, the sperm ceases to exist. The nuclear and cytoplasmic material of the sperm is now mingled with the oocyte nucleus and cytoplasm in such a way that the two can't be separated without causing the death of the new entity. That new entity is a zygote, which, in the proper environment, will divide, differentiate, grow and develop.