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The Beginning of Human Life Review

Fritz K. Beller & Robert F. Weir, editors
The Beginning of Human Life
(Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994) 404 pages
(ISBN: 0-7823-2165-0; hardcover)
(Library of Congress call number: RG133.5.B44 1993)
Papers from a conference in 1990 on the beginning of human life.
Major divisions:
(1) fetal development.
(2) assisted reproduction technology.
(3) contraception & abortion.
(4) fetal research & fetal tissue.
(5) maternal/fetal relationship--medical, ethical, legal aspects.
(6) defective fetuses & newborns.
The editors of this collection are well aware of the religious reasons
for raising the question of the beginning of human life.
But they present scientific data as presently known
rather than metaphysical speculations
about the beginning of each human being.
Fertilization creates a unique strand of DNA in the human egg:
An unrepeatable human genome has come into being.
About half of these will not implant in the lining of the uterus.
Some implanted fertilized eggs will not develop.
Some embryos will divide--forming twins.
Some twins embryos will re-combine after a few weeks
and proceed to create just one individual.
The concept of a human person is much more elaborate
than the scientific description of an embryo.
Usually personhood includes
such capacities as thinking and communicating.
We take our idea of personhood from our experience
as adult persons and with other adult persons.
Hence our moral and metaphysical concepts of personhood
may not correlate well with the scientific description
of the development of an embryo, a fetus, & later a baby.
As medical science and technology progresses,
we are able to save smaller and smaller babies.
The courts and legislatures have attempted to define
when a fetus will be viable in terms of weeks of gestation
or the size of the fetus.
But there will never be a definite, bright line everyone can agree upon.
At any given weight or length of gestation,
a few premature babies will survive.
And as the weight and size at birth increases,
more will survive--especially with neo-natal intensive care.
Medical science and technology will continue
to develop the capacity to 'save' more abnormal fetuses than ever before.
If everything that can be done is done
--which is often the default 'scientific' decision--
the human population will have more and more abnormal individuals.
If we want to prevent this from happening,
we need to make the moral and political decisions
about which fetuses to 'save' and which to allow to die.
People who are not part of the medical team
need to help establish and implement guidelines
for when to end life-supports for defective fetuses and newborns.
In each individual case, the parents must always be consulted.
Setting rigid standards by law will do more harm than good.
"Assisted reproduction" advances every year.
We human beings have more and more influence
on the genetic make-up of the babies conceived and born.
This capacity to influence the genetic make-up of the next generation
could be used for good or bad purposes,
to achieve trivial or meaningful changes.
Who--if anyone--should control such future genetic powers?
Fetuses brought into the world without any brains
can be used for organ-donation to other infants
who have brains but are missing some other important parts.
Should we define fetuses born without brains as born dead?
Should permanent lack of consciousness be a sufficient criterion of death?
How shall we decide these extreme cases
--as well as the cases of fetuses born with less severe limitations?
The uses of fetal tissue has in the past been deeply entangled
with the emotional debate about abortion.
Opponents believe that allowing the use of tissue from abortions
will encourage more abortions to be performed.
The answer to this worry is to make absolutely certain
that the decision for an abortion is completely separate
from any later decision about the use of the fetal tissue.
However, even tho these are completely separate decisions
--made by different people for different reasons--
there should also be some coordination of timing,
so that maximum benefit can be achieved
from the donated organs and tissues.
This reviewer observes that people are especially emotional
--and often irrational--when it comes to fetuses and newborns.
It is especially difficult for a prospective mother
--who may have invested tremendous emotional hope in her fetus--
to decide to donate 'her baby' so that someone else might live.
She does not want any (additional) 'harm' to come to her baby
--even if it was doomed from before birth.
Better public education about fetuses who cannot live
and the need for their organs and tissues
would better prepare disappointed would-be parents
for donating the organs and tissues of their defective fetuses
so that other babies--and sometimes adults--might live.
Sometimes the interests of the fetus conflict
with the wishes of the pregnant woman.
When--if ever--does the state have the right
to step in and protect a fetus?
And if a fetus has rights that can be asserted
against the rights of the pregnant woman,
does this not make the right to abortion meaningless?
Sometimes health authorities have put pregnant woman in jail
to prevent them from using drugs and/or alcohol,
which would harm the developing fetus.
Since the state will end up paying for the care of a damaged fetus,
this could be the basis of any claim of right to intervene.
But in most cases, the state does not attempt to intervene.
The pregnant woman has a right to abort her pregnancy.
But usually the state has no power to intervene to protect the fetus.
Reviewer's observations again:
A more rational society would license most adults to be parents.
Then, in the most extreme cases such as an alcoholic pregnant woman,
the woman would probably not have a license to become a parent.
If the health authorities are going to take the baby
from the unlicensed mother at birth in any case,
then the state has a right to protect this fetus
from further harm by the alcoholic pregnant woman.
If the state has a proprietary interest in the fetus,
this might be compared to the interest of a father who knows that
the child will become entirely his responsibility after birth.
He will then do everything possible to prevent harm to the fetus,
including putting the pregnant woman into some confined situation
to prevent further harm from alcohol and/or drugs.
The liberty interests of the pregnant woman
should also be taken into account.
But if the fetus has already been declared a ward of the state,
--even if the fetus is not a person with any legal rights--
then the pregnant woman could be forced to choose
between going to some confined situation until the fetus is born
(for the protection of the fetus) or having an abortion now.
Another conflict between parents and the fetus
concerns the failure of the doctor to detect malformation in the fetus.
All would-be parents want perfect babies.
And when their baby is born with a defect,
they feel the urge to sue someone--usually the doctor.
If the doctor could have discovered the defect before birth,
the parents would have selected abortion
rather than having a defective baby to care for.
This leads to 'wrongful birth' lawsuits,
even sometimes by the persons born with burdensome defects.
Modern doctors now have a duty to detect fetal abnormalities.
At least, they have the duty to offer to do tests
that could detect such abnormalities.
If the parents refuse these tests,
then they give up their right to sue if the fetus is defective.
A specific example:
We now know a great deal about the brain development of fetuses.
If the neural tube does not fuse by an early date in gestation,
the fetus will never be a person who can think and feel.
It will be a vegetable.
Given such a prognosis,
most prospective parents would terminate the pregnancy.
The other option is caring for an organism
that will never be able to think or respond,
perhaps like keeping a large fish in an aquarium at home.
To help them consider their options, the prospective parents
should be shown videotapes of such 'children'.
Then they can ask themselves whether they want to devote
a significant part of their lives to caring for such a creature.
[The preceding summary and responses
emerged by the first chapter of The Beginning of Human Life,
which was written by the editors.]
The concept of "person" has also been subject to legal definition.
For example, a slave was not a person in the early United States.
Only after slavery was abolished in 1863
did former slaves become legal persons.
Likewise women were not recognized as persons who could vote until 1920.
On the other hand, the law has long defined corporations...Read more›

The Beginning of Human Life Overview

Progress in biomedical science has called for an internationaldiscussion of the medical, ethical, and legal problems that confrontphysicians, medical researchers, infertile couples, pregnant women,and parents of premature or disabled infants. In addition, theunprecedented technological developments in obstetrical, perinatal,and neonatal medicine in recent years have indicated a need for aninternational forum for interdisciplinary dialogue regarding thedefinition of early human life, the neurological development of earlyhuman life, the value of early human life, the obligations for itsprotection and prolongation, and the limits to these obligations.

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