"Exposing Culture of Death, Inc."

by Mark Stricherz - March 29, 2008

Reprinted with permission.

Embryo: A Defense of Human Life

Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen, Doubleday, $23.95, 256 pages

Like a successful corporation, the culture of death is gaining market share. As late as 20 years ago, it was confined mainly to abortion clinics and hospitals. It now has expanded to research labs: ten states permit embryonic stem cell research, while eight states permit human cloning, known as "therapeutic cloning." The end of Roe v. Wade may be near, but in one market at least, Culture of Death, Inc., is poised to achieve greater penetration. Both Democratic presidential candidates, as well as presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, support taxpayer-financed embryonic stem cell research.

Every political movement needs theorists, and perhaps the best public philosopher against the culture of death is Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. George is the author of several books about religion and politics, including 2001's The Clash of Orthodoxies. Now, he and Christopher Tollefsen, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, have written Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. It is an impressively reasoned and argued book, one that undercuts Culture of Death, Inc.'s, intellectual foundations.

George and Tollefsen make three main arguments. Their first is that a human embryo or zygote is, well, human. In their definition, the embryonic boy or girl is a "whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of life." When this human embryo comes into being is trickier. In the vast majority of cases, an embryo is a single organism during the end of fertilization or conception; in the cases of twins, the two embryos become separate organisms during the formation of the primitive streak during gastrulation, a process that occurs during the third week after conception.

The embryo has three defining characteristics: He or she is distinct from the mother and father; possesses the genetic makeup distinct of humans; and is a complete or whole organism. This is a rational position, but it's widely misunderstood. Some intellectuals compare embryos to sperms or eggs. Others liken them to somatic cells, like skin cells or muscle cells. The error in both suppositions is that embryos are functionally separate from the mother and father. Left to its own resources, "a skin cell will not become a human embryo."

The authors' second argument is that embryos are persons. Their definition of personhood is biological: The embryo possesses a basic natural capacity for reason and self consciousness, the ability to choose, and to use language. "Our position is that we human beings have the special kind of value that makes us subjects of rights by virtue of what (i.e. the kind of entity) we are," they write.

In opposition to this view are two types of moral dualism. The developmental version equates personhood with immediately exercisable capacity – the ability to do something now. The attribution version equates personhood with the ability to decide now. The weakness of the development version is its logical conclusion: If immediate exercisable capacity is the criterion for personhood, people in comas and asleep would qualify as non-persons. The weakness of the attribution version is that it's analogous to the law of the jungle: The powerful decide the fate of the weak.

The authors' third argument is that human embryos deserve legal protection. They affirm natural law theory, which posits that humans are good in themselves and ought not to be used as a means to an end. Of the principles of natural law, the number-one right is the right of "an innocent human person not to be directly killed or maimed."

One competing ethical system is utilitarianism, which maintains that right conduct prefers pleasure to pain. Princeton ethicist Peter Singer argues that all sentient creatures deserve to be free from suffering; if certain animals and humans cannot feel pain, their interests are subordinate to others. George and Tollefsen contend that if this utilitarian argument is taken to its logical conclusion, late-term fetuses and very young newborns could be killed because they cannot reason and are not self-aware.

As you might guess, Embryo is not a book for the casual reader. Its language is often abstract and confusing; sprinkled throughout the text are highly technical, biological words – blastomeres, trophoblasts, the zona pellucida. The book's structure in one key chapter is faulty; the authors devote 22 pages to describing the origins of life without a reminder of why the description is important. Also, the authors' use of the term "it" to describe embryos is ill advised; the argument for protecting unborn human lives depends on viewing them as subjects or persons, not objects or things.

In fact, the thesis of Embryo is not especially original; several of its arguments can be found in Ramesh Ponnuru's The Party of Death. Even so, the book is essential reading for university students, activists on both sides of the debate, and public philosophers. Its chief virtue – and it's a major virtue – is the totality of its arguments, the wholesale assault on the notion that a human embryo is an unequal being. George and Tollefsen show that the tiniest human embryo is the moral equal of the largest adult. An embryo is not a "potential life," as the Supreme Court has termed this nascent life in several of its abortion cases, but rather a "life with potential."

As the reference to the nation's highest court suggests, the implications of Embryo could not be bigger.

Those who accept its logic but reject its conclusion should acknowledge that they favor the killing not only of human embryos, but also of other groups of people, such as those in comas and very young newborns. After all, a human zygote is no more likely to reason or speak than a comatose person or a day-old infant.

Those who accept its logic and conclusion should acknowledge that they favor extending legal protection to human embryos. After all, every other class of human beings is subject to the law. The authors call for banning all embryo-destructive research and "regulat[ing] the production of human embryos in IVF procedures to ensure that couples create no more embryos than they could reasonably expect to bring to term."

In other words, George and Tollefsen have pulled off a rare feat. They have shown that Culture of Death, Inc., must either expand to new markets or have its charter revoked.

Mark Stricherz, a contributor to GetReligion.org and InsideCatholic.com, is the author of Why the Democrats are Blue: Secular Liberalism and the Decline of the People's Party (Encounter Books).