Human Embryos Custody Case
The current debate over when human life begins reminds me of a dispute that the philosopher William James tried to settle many years ago while on a camping trip. James had been out for a “solitary ramble” in the woods when, returning to the campsite, he found his colleagues engaged in a hot dispute over a squirrel they had seen on a tree. It seems that whenever one of the campers had tried to get close to the squirrel, it had scampered to the other side of the tree, thereby keeping the tree between itself and the man. The debate was over the question whether the man “went round” the squirrel in his vain attempt to get a close look at it.
James tried to settle the debate by calling it a “verbal dispute”: if one means by the words “going round” being first in front of, then to the left of, then behind, and then to the right of the squirrel, it follows that the man did not go round the squirrel, for he was never in these positions relative to the animal. If, however, one means by “going round” being in the compass positions of north, east, south and west, then the man did go round the squirrel for he did occupy these positions. Hence, James argued, the two sides are arguing at cross purposes.
Much of the dispute that has erupted over Tennessee Judge W. Dale Young’s decision to award custody of seven frozen human embryos to Mary Sue Davis on the grounds that they are “human life” also appears to be a verbal disagreement (Part I, Sept. 22). When anti-abortion rights groups urge that the embryo is a human life, they often mean that it is genetically human, for (like Young) they quote scientific evidence that the embryo has cells that “are differentiated, unique and specialized to the highest degree of distinction.”
However, when pro-abortion rights groups deny that the embryo is human life, they are not denying that it has the human genetic code; rather, they are denying that the human embryo is morally human, that it is a member of the moral community, a “person” having rights and responsibilities.
Anti-abortion rights groups may insist that they also wish to use the words “human life” in the moral sense. However, in that case they must produce an argument to show that everything that is genetically human should also be regarded as morally human with full membership in the moral community. Of course, that is what the abortion debate is all about and it is not going to be settled by scientific evidence about the cells of the human embryo.
LAURENCE D. HOULGATE
San Luis Obispo
