An Embryo is a Human Being

An Embryo Is A Human Being

By Elaine Shay, M.D.

February 6 2005

As a physician, I have particular interest in legislation regarding biomedical research, such as the bill that would use taxpayer money to fund embryonic stem cell research in Connecticut. I oppose this bill because I believe embryonic stem cell research is immoral.I contend that a human embryo, whether derived through natural fertilization, in vitro fertilization or cloning, is a human being.

A human embryo ought to have the same moral status as any other human being.

Some suggest a human embryo is merely a clump of cells with no purpose or organization. Or they say it has no "consciousness" and, thus, no personhood. I submit that such contentions are not grounded in scientific evidence.At the moment of fertilization, a new life has begun. It is human life: It would never become human if it were not human already. The complete genetic makeup of a human being is present at conception, and development is continuous from that point. The selection of any other moment as the starting point of life would be arbitrary.Far from being a mere "clump of cells," the embryonic human being already manifests much organization, differentiation and specialization in its cells. After the first cleavage, the two resulting cells differ in size according to the amount of cytoplasm received from the original single cell, suggesting polarity from the very beginning.

Indeed, experiments have demonstrated that the relative position of a cell in the early embryo affects its later function: Cells from one pole will develop into neurological structures, and cells from the other pole will become digestive and other systems. The great complexity of the early embryo is made even more apparent when, at the two-cell stage, scientists observe that the embryo begins producing a glycoprotein called E-cadherin, an extracellular matrix molecule that is important in cell-to-cell adhesion and communication between cells.

Although its significance during that two-cell period has not yet been clearly ascertained, E-cadherin has been shown to be essential for the compaction process of the embryo at the eight-cell stage, implying a remarkable planning process already at hand.But perhaps the clearest evidence that the embryo is no mere "clump of cells" is this: Unless denied a suitable environment, the embryo will direct his or her own development to the next step, the fetal stage. Indeed, the embryo is merely one of many stages in the continuum of human development, others being the fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult.

Thus, the scientific data overwhelmingly indicate that the embryo is an individual, self-directed, living human being.Whether a human being is a human person is to cross from science into philosophy. Some have tried to define personhood based on "consciousness," rationality or ability to sustain oneself. There are problems, however, with arguments that moral status depends on manifest functions and can be accrued during development. The consequence of such thinking would be to relegate infants, children, the mentally retarded and the elderly to lower moral value.The creation of subsets of human beings that have different legal privileges is clearly antithetical to the principles of democracy.

The human embryo has rights that must be respected, and the same moral norms that govern scientific experimentation on all people must apply to human embryos.

Research on embryonic stem cells that destroys the embryos is therefore morally unacceptable. I do not doubt that proponents of embryonic stem cell research are well-intentioned. But history shows what happens when we lose respect for human dignity: Nazi doctors experimented on Jewish prisoners. In the Willowbrook State School study of the 1950s, mentally retarded children were infected with hepatitis to study the effect of gamma globulin injections. In the Tuskegee study from 1932 to 1972, physicians observed the progress of untreated syphilis in 399 African American men despite the availability of penicillin. In encouraging research on human embryos, we would be making mistakes again.Not only is embryonic stem cell research morally wrong, it is most likely a scientifically and economically poor choice for medical research. Not a single therapeutic success has been produced from embryonic stem cell research thus far.

There are a number of technical problems with embryonic stem cells. Their very plasticity may be a detriment, because the young cells have proved difficult to coax into becoming normal specialized cells and have in some animal studies produced tumors instead.

Furthermore, because embryonic stem cells come from someone else, patients' bodies may reject them. Adult stem cells, which do not require the destruction of the organism from which they are obtained, have demonstrated a remarkable ability to transform into a variety of cells, including liver, muscle, cardiac, kidney, lung and neuronal cells. Researchers have reported improvements following injection of adult stem cells in disorders as varied as Parkinson's disease, liver cirrhosis, myocardial infarction, sickle-cell anemia and stroke. Also, adult stem cells have not been associated with tumors as their embryonic counterparts have.

Adult stem cells may be taken from patients themselves, thereby avoiding rejection. Some have expressed the fear that Connecticut will be left behind if the state does not invest in embryonic stem cell research. On the contrary, given the superior potential of adult stem cells, I suggest that Connecticut would be at a far greater advantage if we concentrated our resources on them instead. Scientists here in Connecticut are already among the world's leaders in adult stem cell research. For example, one Yale investigator, Dr. Diane Krause, has produced liver, lung, digestive tract and skin cells from adult bone marrow cells. Another, Dr. Charles Greer, has demonstrated the ability of adult olfactory cells to help regenerate injured spinal cords. Their morally sound work provides much hope for the people and patients of Connecticut and beyond.

Dr. Elaine Shay is an ophthalmology resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant