Is a blastocyst a human being?

[bascule]

To avoid further derailing a thread in the politics forum, I felt this thread should be split.

 

To begin, let me post a definition of blastocyst (from WordNet):

 

early stage of an embryo produced by cleavage of an ovum; a liquid-filled sphere whose wall is composed of a single layer of cells; during this stage (about eight days after fertilization) implantation in the wall of the uterus occurs

 

The basic question is: does a blastocyst meet the criteria of a human being? The best way to argue this point, I believe, is to enumerate the core criteria which comprise a human being, then use that to argue the point.

 

Some things to keep in mind are various things which would comprise parts of a human being but not human beings themselves. An example would be a biopsy. Unless your argument is that a biopsy is a human being, your criteria should no be so vague as to be unable to distinguish the difference. I personally think the idea of a biopsy being considered a human being is foolish, and I think that's a sentiment which is universally shared.

 

I'm going to go ahead and post my reply to ParanoiA from the other thread to start things off.

[bascule]

This debate isn't about the first line in the Amendment 2, it's about whether or not folks believe a blastocyst is a human or not.

 

But people like bascule want to ignore that part of the debate.

 

If you're not going to argue either side of this argument, why do you keep bringing it up?

 

I would like to hear a defense of how a blastocyst could be considered a human being.

 

Any post-natal mammal is going to be far closer to a human being than a blastocyst is. For example, these creatures have a nervous system and are capible of the base acts of memory and prediction which are the basis of the human conscious experience.

 

A blastocyst is a growth consisting of a small grouping of undifferentiated cells.

 

By what definition of "human being" can a small growth of undifferentiated cells possibly be considered a human being, which would discount, say, a colonic biopsy, yet still enumerate the basic properties of a human being?

 

While you claim I "ignore that part of the debate", I've discussed it several times. I do not think there is any reasonable definition of a human being under which a blastocyst would fall.

 

If you care to attempt to define a human being in such a way, be my guest.

 

I've already argued that one of the basic properties of a human being is a nervous system, with which you agreed.

 

Do you care to explain how you conceed this point yet insist to argue that a blastocyst may reasonably be considered a human being?

[john5746]

Sorry, I voted yes - bad joke.

[ParanoiA]

Well, you keep looking at the obvious. Size and development. Did you ever consider looking smaller? You already know what makes a human or any creature actually comes down to the cellular level. The moment your unique dna was created is the moment you were born. Why limit your definition to that which you simply see with the naked eye?

 

Just a point of view...

 

human being 

 

1. any individual of the genus Homo, esp. a member of the species Homo sapiens.

2. a person, esp. as distinguished from other animals or as representing the human species: living conditions not fit for human beings; a very generous human being.

 

From dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/human%20being

[EvoN1020v]

This has been a hot debate about this relating with abortion, saying whether embyro is declared a "human" or not.

 

But on a smaller scale such as a blastocyst, I wouldn't consider it a human, because it's really early in its stage. I don't have any evidences to support my opinion, but it sounds reasonable. It's like a baby chicken from an egg. We can control whether the egg would become into a baby chicken or not, as it needs nurturing envoirnment for it to grow.

 

But the egg in the woman's womb is already in a nurturing envoirnment so that's another issue.

 

I'm talking really randomly here.

[Sisyphus]

The moment your unique dna was created is the moment you were born. Why limit your definition to that which you simply see with the naked eye?

 

Eh. The first cancer cell that mutates has unique human DNA, but I don't think anyone would call the tumor a human being. Not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

[ParanoiA]

Eh. The first cancer cell that mutates has unique human DNA, but I don't think anyone would call the tumor a human being. Not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

 

Yeah, but something has to be said about the moment your unique genetic code was created - whatever absolute form it comes in.

[ParanoiA]

This has been a hot debate about this relating with abortion, saying whether embyro is declared a "human" or not.

 

But on a smaller scale such as a blastocyst, I wouldn't consider it a human, because it's really early in its stage. I don't have any evidences to support my opinion, but it sounds reasonable. It's like a baby chicken from an egg. We can control whether the egg would become into a baby chicken or not, as it needs nurturing envoirnment for it to grow.

 

But the egg in the woman's womb is already in a nurturing envoirnment so that's another issue.

 

I'm talking really randomly here.

 

This still smells like ideology trapped by paradigm. If you do not interfere, it will become a chicken and will never become anything else - or dead. Chicken or dead. That's it. That's because it was a chicken all along. It simply augmented and advanced its form.

 

The blastocyst, within the supportive system it is built for, will become a human and only a human - or dead. Because it was a human all along. Your genetic mixture is you. That makes you, you. The rest is packaging.

 

And what does nurturing have to do with anything? A full grown human needs constant nourishment and maintenance to live as well.

[Sisyphus]

Yeah, but something has to be said about the moment your unique genetic code was created - whatever absolute form it comes in.

 

OK: The first occurence of my genetic code existed in the form of a zygote, the "seed" which, working in conjunction with my mother's body, eventually became a human being, that is to say, me. Or, alternatively, half of my genetic code existed in the form of an ovum which developed inside the fetus that would become my mother, which in turn was inside the uterus of my grandmother. The other half developed many years later inside my father.

 

I guess that second way is sort of awkward, but it does kind of underline the arbitrary nature of drawing the line of "where life begins." I suppose fertilization is as good a place as any, and more intuitive than most. The problem is when you start attaching moral significance to the arbitrary choice, at which point it does become important, because all of a sudden you have to weigh it as a being with its own moral end, in opposition to other concerns, like alleviating the suffering of beings who are actually capable of it (suffering, that is).

 

Hence, it's important to define "human" in the moral sense as something which actually relates to morality analogously to a full-grown human, which a blob of cells does not. As long as you remember that it is, at root, still basically an arbitrary decision, you shouldn't run into trouble.

 

As for genetics, sure, it's genetically human, but so are the skin cells I shed every day by the hundreds, and I don't grieve for them. And if I had an identical twin, I would still consider us two different people and not one, despite our having identical DNA, because DNA is not everything.

[AzurePhoenix]

Yeah, but something has to be said about the moment your unique genetic code was created - whatever absolute form it comes in.

You mean the moment your unique genetic code was randomly shuffled, probably as result of faulty latex. With a coupla coding mistakes.

 

Because it was a human all along. Your genetic mixture is you. That makes you, you. The rest is packaging.

What makes you you is BEING you, you being a result of your genetics, your experiences, the conditions your body developed under, your unique delusions, the brand of underwear you buy, etc etc etc. Saying a blastocyst IS a human is like saying an acorn IS an oak-tree. Maybe they're the same species at the genetic level, but they aren't the same damn thing functionally. One is big and has leaves, the other is tiny with a funny little hat.

[bascule]

This still smells like ideology trapped by paradigm. If you do not interfere, it will become a chicken

 

If you're going to argue potentials, then every sperm has the potential to be a human being. By that definition, every time you masturbate, you're committing genocide. Every time a woman ovulates but does not conceive, she has committed murder.

 

Sperm and eggs are clearly not human beings (or at least, I can only hope you agree). So why is a blastocyst?

 

A blastocyst needs to implant itself in the uterine wall and suck an enormous wealth of nutrients from the uterine bloodstream in order to become a human being. Without these things, it's a lump of cells that's doomed to die.

 

Many blastocysts fail to implant and die. Should we charge the mother with manslaughter for killing a potential human being?

[SkepticLance]

Looks like most people here agree that a particular pattern of DNA is not what makes one human. Like most thinking people (which is everyone on this forum) I pondered this issue in the past and came to a conclusion that I find acceptable.

 

Being human is a function of mentality. It is not DNA. It is not the shape of your body - a doll is not human. It is not a potentiality. Every cell in my body has the potential to be cloned into a new person - but if I bleed and lose nucleated white cells, that is not murder.

 

Humanity comes from the mind, and that is shown by size of brain. When we actually become human is somewhat of a subjective judgement, but must follow substantial brain growth. ie. late in pregnancy, if not even later.

[bascule]

DNA is just information. If "it contains human DNA" is your metric then any computer containing a human genome is a human being.

[Glider]

The blastocyst, within the supportive system it is built for, will become a human and only a human - or dead. Because it was a human all along.

The problem is with the use of language. There is a big difference between being 'human' and being 'a human'. Indeed, the whole thread revolves around that point.

 

A blastocyst may be human, that does not make it a human being. It is not a being. That a human blastocyst will become a human being is a given, but that does not make the blastocyst a human being any more than, as AzurePhoenix pointed out, an acorn is an oak.

 

Your genetic mixture is you. That makes you, you. The rest is packaging.

This is not true either. Your genetic mixture makes you a genetically unique lump of meat, but it is not 'you'. What makes you 'you' is your unique psychology. Without that, you are just meat.

[ParanoiA]

OK: The first occurence of my genetic code existed in the form of a zygote, the "seed" which, working in conjunction with my mother's body, eventually became a human being, that is to say, me. Or, alternatively, half of my genetic code existed in the form of an ovum which developed inside the fetus that would become my mother, which in turn was inside the uterus of my grandmother. The other half developed many years later inside my father.

 

Half of your genetic code is not an existing living genetic code, it's only potential. A seed is just a description of something identifying its stage in form or development. It's potentially a "fetus" or "child" but it's already human.

 

The problem is when you start attaching moral significance to the arbitrary choice' date=' at which point it does become important, because all of a sudden you have to weigh it as a being with its own moral end, in opposition to other concerns, like alleviating the suffering of beings who are actually capable of it (suffering, that is).

 

Hence, it's important to define "human" in the moral sense as something which actually relates to morality analogously to a full-grown human, which a blob of cells does not. As long as you remember that it is, at root, still basically an arbitrary decision, you shouldn't run into trouble. [/quote']

 

Actually, this sounds more like an appeal to status quo morality. You don't want to have to change how you think about everything. To me, this would be like disclaiming Einstein's theory of relativity because we already have all of these really cool Newtonian equations that work pretty well and we don't want to have to rethink everything.

 

Suffering and nervous systems, size and shape, stage in development - all arbitrary points in time to decide when it becomes human. Human's change their entire life. Some stages are more dramtic than others - but they're still human the whole time. And we're all just a glob of cells...grown up or not.

 

As for genetics, sure, it's genetically human, but so are the skin cells I shed every day by the hundreds, and I don't grieve for them. And if I had an identical twin, I would still consider us two different people and not one, despite our having identical DNA, because DNA is not everything.

 

But your skins cells won't grow into a human. The nucleus can be taken from them and "installed" in an egg cell and it will grow into a full sized human. It was a human the moment it merged with the egg cell.

 

You mean the moment your unique genetic code was randomly shuffled, probably as result of faulty latex. With a coupla coding mistakes.

 

Yes, exactly.

 

What makes you you is BEING you, you being a result of your genetics, your experiences, the conditions your body developed under, your unique delusions, the brand of underwear you buy, etc etc etc.

 

Good point. But, I meant more along the lines of being a human. You being you as you've described, is a more developed you. But you're a human the whole time.

 

Saying a blastocyst IS a human is like saying an acorn IS an oak-tree. Maybe they're the same species at the genetic level, but they aren't the same damn thing functionally. One is big and has leaves, the other is tiny with a funny little hat.

 

This is the best argument I've heard yet. My initial thought is that we go to trouble to distinguish the seed from the tree - just like we go to trouble to distinguish the child from a grownup. I don't know how genetically unique oak trees are with each other, but I would argue that, yes, it is of the oak species. The seed is the baby oak, and the tree is the adult oak.

 

Is a baby an adult? No, it's a potential adult. But it's still human, both as a baby and as an adult. The seed is an oak, the tree is an oak - they're both of the oak species whether it becomes food for squirrels - those fluffy murdering bastards - or it's lucky enough to complete its life cycle and become a tree.

 

If you're going to argue potentials, then every sperm has the potential to be a human being. By that definition, every time you masturbate, you're committing genocide. Every time a woman ovulates but does not conceive, she has committed murder.

 

I'm not arguing potentials. It's potentially a full grown human - not potentially a human. Sperm is potentially a human, so no it's not human at all yet. When a woman ovulates and does not conceive she has not commited murder because there was apparently no human to grow. An egg is only potential.

 

A blastocyst needs to implant itself in the uterine wall and suck an enormous wealth of nutrients from the uterine bloodstream in order to become a human being. Without these things, it's a lump of cells that's doomed to die.

 

And so are you. You are lump of cells that's doomed to die if you don't continually take in nutrients, breathe air, fight disease, etc. You are just as much of a maintenance burden on nature now as you were when you couldn't be seen with the naked eye.

 

DNA is just information. If "it contains human DNA" is your metric then any computer containing a human genome is a human being.

 

DNA is just information, but a cell is alive. The computer can't grow a human without installing that DNA into a living encoder - like a nucleus - and then implanting it in a blank egg cell. So no, a computer containing a human genome ( a binary interpretation ) is not a human.

 

Being human is a function of mentality. It is not DNA. It is not the shape of your body - a doll is not human. It is not a potentiality. Every cell in my body has the potential to be cloned into a new person - but if I bleed and lose nucleated white cells, that is not murder.

 

Every cell has the potential to be cloned. But it isn't cloned. And none of them will produce a human until you "re-create" the conditions for human production, which will ultimately lead to a "recoded" nucleus in an egg cell thereby initiating the human growth process. It is a human from the first cell.

 

Humanity comes from the mind, and that is shown by size of brain. When we actually become human is somewhat of a subjective judgement, but must follow substantial brain growth. ie. late in pregnancy, if not even later.

 

This is just another arbitrary line based on our insistance that nothing is human until we can interact with it somehow, or see it and relate its shape into something we can associate with ourselves. It still just seems like conditioned logic.

 

A blastocyst may be human, that does not make it a human being. It is not a being. That a human blastocyst will become a human being is a given, but that does not make the blastocyst a human being any more than, as AzurePhoenix pointed out, an acorn is an oak.

 

Again, an acorn, an oak, a zygote, a grownup, a kitten, a cat...it's all just humans classifying the stages a living organism goes through. It's important to distinguish these stages for millions of reasons - but for this particular discussion I think it's a disservice that has clouded and boxed up our thinking.

 

Just because you can't talk to it, poke it, or get a response from it that you would get from most humans doesn't keep it from being a human being. You can't get a response from a vegetable or comatose person either - and they're not capable of suffering - yet they're still human beings.

 

Your genetic mixture makes you a genetically unique lump of meat, but it is not 'you'. What makes you 'you' is your unique psychology. Without that, you are just meat.

 

So if someone removes my brain then I'm no longer human? A genetically unique lump of meat is all any animal really is. This meat contains a brain that utilizes electricity and neurons to generate what we think of as thought - the way it fires, the strengths of the various areas of the brain, the chemicals, are all influenced and molded by this genetic instruction set that started with a single egg cell, with a unique nucleus that contained everything needed to grow into a full sized ego prone human being.

 

The moment my unique genetic code was put in motion - my first cell - is the obvious starting point, in my humble opinion.

 

Some really great points in here, I hope this discussion stays interesting. I know it sounds like I've already made up my mind, and I have to admit I'm fairly commited to this line of thought so far, but this is part of the critical thinking process that I have to go through to be confident in what I finally decide.

 

So far, it seems like everyone is basically saying it isn't a human because it doesn't resemble something they think of as human - just because it's itty bitty, doesn't have stuff that they have and so forth. But when you challenge your own thoughts about the line you have drawn you have to agree there is no consistency there.

 

If you say it has to have a nervous system then when does it officially have a nervous system? How far into nervous system construction does it finally have one? One cell? A million cells? When you finally make a decision on when it's finally built, then subtract one cell and try convincing yourself that's not a human just because it's one cell shy of your line.

 

That's what lead me to this. That perhaps, it's one cell that IS the line.

[Sisyphus]

I'll just deal with the parts addressed to me, to prevent wildly branching complexity...

 

Half of your genetic code is not an existing living genetic code, it's only potential. A seed is just a description of something identifying its stage in form or development. It's potentially a "fetus" or "child" but it's already human.

 

It is living - if half or all of it were dead it would lose the potential to combine and become a person. And it is human, just in a different stage. The stage before its two genetic halves unite. NOTE: I say this not because its what I believe, but to highlight the arbitrary nature of the whole debate.

 

Actually, this sounds more like an appeal to status quo morality. You don't want to have to change how you think about everything. To me, this would be like disclaiming Einstein's theory of relativity because we already have all of these really cool Newtonian equations that work pretty well and we don't want to have to rethink everything.

 

No, because there are non-arbitrary reasons for picking relativity over simple Newtonian mechanics. If there were not, then it wouldn't matter which we picked, and we would regard them as equally valid theories. Here, it is also abitrary, and so from a purely scientific viewpoint, one definition is just as good as another. However, it MATTERS which one we pick, since we're basing real decisions that hugely affect (unambiguously) human lives on our arbitrary definition.

 

Suffering and nervous systems, size and shape, stage in development - all arbitrary points in time to decide when it becomes human. Human's change their entire life. Some stages are more dramtic than others - but they're still human the whole time. And we're all just a glob of cells...grown up or not.

 

Exactly. EXACTLY.

 

But your skins cells won't grow into a human. The nucleus can be taken from them and "installed" in an egg cell and it will grow into a full sized human. It was a human the moment it merged with the egg cell.

 

So it's back to "potentially human = human," then? Earlier you said a separated egg and sperm was not a human because it was only potentially so. You said the deciding factor was the unique genetic code, and my skin cells have that, and so does my twin brother. I'm not trying to play "gotcha," here - my point is the same as it was, to show the difficulties, contradictions, and arbitrary nature of ANY definition. I'm not in agreement with bascule, for instance, since I think his definition is arbitrary as well. Scientifically, neither is superior, since it's not a scientific question. From a humanitarian standpoint, however, the definition of "being capable of suffering," which is not derived from nature but which we select ourselves, is VASTLY superior.

[ParanoiA]

It is living - if half or all of it were dead it would lose the potential to combine and become a person. And it is human, just in a different stage. The stage before its two genetic halves unite. NOTE: I say this not because its what I believe, but to highlight the arbitrary nature of the whole debate.

 

But it doesn't exist yet. It's merely potential. Potential is not existence. It's not in a different stage because it doesn't exist yet. You're trying to equate potential with existence and there is nothing to validate that comparison. By that logic, everything that will every be is already in existence since we're all walking around with the gene pool of the next millenium.

 

So it's back to "potentially human = human," then? Earlier you said a separated egg and sperm was not a human because it was only potentially so. You said the deciding factor was the unique genetic code, and my skin cells have that, and so does my twin brother. I'm not trying to play "gotcha," here - my point is the same as it was, to show the difficulties, contradictions, and arbitrary nature of ANY definition.

 

I'm not sure where you think I'm saying potential human = human. I said that when you merged that nucleus with an egg cell, that it will grow into a full sized human - because the moment you merged the two, your unique genetic code is now put into action - to "grow" - the development process begins, a human was created at that moment.

 

 

From a humanitarian standpoint, however, the definition of "being capable of suffering," which is not derived from nature but which we select ourselves, is VASTLY superior.

 

So then from a humanitarian standpoint, a person in a vegetative state is not a human?

[AzurePhoenix]

So then from a humanitarian standpoint, a person in a vegetative state is not a human?

Trying to be more careful with the semantics here, I'd say Mr.BrainDead would be a biological human, but not a "human being," as in a functional, living entity of the biological human species(to me for the sake of this particular thread).

[Royston]

So if someone removes my brain then I'm no longer human?

 

Of course not, your vulture food...remember we 'know' your brain has been removed so we know you have no feeling capacity whatsoever, the only reaction to stimulus you'll have is decomposition through exposure to oxygen.

 

Now, although you keep denying it, you 'are' arguing the potential of an organism, we don't 'know' what's going to happen tomorrow, so if an embryo has the potential to become human, or has the potential to die we can't tell so they end up cancelling each other out. Until the fetus has developed into a living, breathing human...and we know it's human, due to it's unique reactions to stimulus, and displaying behaviours such as communication et.c, then and only then is it human. Not when it's a fetus, not when it's a corpse.

[ParanoiA]

Of course not, your vulture food...remember we 'know' your brain has been removed so we know you have no feeling capacity whatsoever, the only reaction to stimulus you'll have is decomposition through exposure to oxygen.

 

Right..a dead human.

 

Now, although you keep denying it, you 'are' arguing the potential of an organism, we don't 'know' what's going to happen tomorrow, so if an embryo has the potential to become human, or has the potential to die we can't tell so they end up cancelling each other out. Until the fetus has developed into a living, breathing human...and we know it's human, due to it's unique reactions to stimulus, and displaying behaviours such as communication et.c, then and only then is it human. Not when it's a fetus, not when it's a corpse.

 

No, no, I'm saying the embryo is already a human, the potential is about whether or not it develops into a baby human, child human, teenage human, adult human, elderly human, dead human - a form you associate as human. You all just keep leaving out the first stage - because you can't see it or relate with it.

 

You have the potential to die and not become an adult. But you were still a human. A fetus and a corpse are human - they're dead humans. They won't be around much longer, and we would likely refer to them as "used to be" humans rather than "are" - BUT, we would also refer to their remains as human.

 

So, how can their remains be human? You can't say their remains are anything other than a human. But the remains can't feel, can't react to stimuli, can't suffer - but we still call them human remains.

[doG]

Why blastocyst? I've argued with people that claimed a zygote was human....

[Royston]

Doh, sorry Paranoia, I forgot to stick 'being' on the end...which screwed my argument up a bit.

 

But again it's just a matter of definition...if one of my relatives ashes were on the mantle piece, I'd refer to the ashes as 'my great grandad' for example, if somebody found the ashes scattered on the ground, without prior knowledge of the source, they'd refer to them as ashes and nothing more. My point being (no pun intended) is we humanize pre and post human stages, but it has to be a specific stage in development to say, that's a human being. I think it's important to make such distinctions, especially on topics such as abortion et.c

[ParanoiA]

Why blastocyst? I've argued with people that claimed a zygote was human....

 

I'm saying the first cell is a human.

[ParanoiA]

Doh, sorry Paranoia, I forgot to stick 'being' on the end...which screwed my argument up a bit.

 

But again it's just a matter of definition...if one of my relatives ashes were on the mantle piece, I'd refer to the ashes as 'my great grandad' for example, if somebody found the ashes scattered on the ground, without prior knowledge of the source, they'd refer to them as ashes and nothing more. My point being (no pun intended) is we humanize pre and post human stages, but it has to be a specific stage in development to say, that's a human being. I think it's important to make such distinctions, especially on topics such as abortion et.c

 

I get your point, I just disagree. I mean, I agree such distinctions are necessary for gagillion reasons, but the only logical starting point for deciding something is human, ape, cat, acorn, is the first known living cell of that thing. At that point, everything after that is just augmenting that cell. We just label the stages along that course. Fetus, Baby, child...etc. I think we have simply left off the original stage because we can't see it, talk to it, throw it up in the air and scare the shit out of it and laugh at it.

 

And "being" just isn't doing anything for me. If it's alive, then it's "being" whatever it is. It is in the active state of being itself. kind of a hatchet job, but I can do better if you insist.

 

You are just a blob of cells. You change, adding and subtracting cells, altering cells, your form and shape change as you grow up and as you grow down. You also require constant daily maintenance from nature or you will die. Just like the first cell and onward.

 

I think it's our paradigms that refuse us to accept it as human. It screws up all of the really cool structuring we've done with morality.

 

That doesn't mean you have to feel bad about killing it. It can't suffer anymore than Mr. Braindead can suffer. And it hasn't become anything we can relate to yet anyway.

[Sisyphus]

Human remains? Genetically human, not a human, but used to be.

 

Braindead vegetable? Same thing. Except in that case, the thing you're talking about is still biologically alive. But not a living human being, I don't think, no.

 

A "human" that, through genetic defect, never develops a brain? Human. But not a human, and never was, not any more than those skill cells I scrape off are a human being.