Listen to the Many Voices on ‘When Life Begins’

At the core of the political controversy surrounding stem cell research lies a difficult ethical and spiritual question: When does human life begin?

The sperm, the ovum and the embryo are all tissue. The question is when does this tissue develop to the point where it has the moral status of a person? The world religions have pondered this without unanimity about when--or if--an embryo or fetus attains human status.

The pope, Catholic bishops and others on the religious right have one answer to the question about when life begins. They believe that life begins in the embryonic tissue and thus by conducting embryo cell research, we are killing human beings. Other religious views that don’t see this tissue as a “child” are being ignored.

One of those other views was held by St. Thomas Aquinas, the premier teacher in the Roman Catholic tradition, who did not think that the early fetus was a person, “ensouled” in his language. St. Thomas believed that the early life in the womb received a spiritual soul--and became a baby--only after three to four months. Thus, embryonic tissue/frozen tissue is certainly not ensouled.

The disavowment of this view, voiced by the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and other conservative religionists, is rooted in the idea that embryonic tissue has the moral status of a child. However, Catholic theologian Christine Gudorf writes that the traditional Catholic pastoral view was that “ensoulment occurred at quickening, when the fetus could first be felt moving in the mother’s womb, usually in the fifth month. Before ensoulment, the fetus was not understood as a human person. This was the reason the Catholic Church did not baptize miscarriages.” Mainline Protestant churches tend to agree.

Jewish theologian Laurie Zoloth writes of Judaism’s perspective: “A fetus is not seen as being an ensouled person. Not only are the first 40 days of conception considered ‘like water’ but also even in the last trimester, the fetus has a lesser moral status.” Many Jews do not consider the fetus a person until the head appears in the birthing process. All of these perspectives would permit embryonic stem cell research.

As we grapple with exceedingly complex and morally difficult issues that science now presents, it is imperative that we integrate into our thinking all of the religious and ethical sources that can shed wisdom. Simply relying on one interpretation does not do this moral and ethical discussion justice.

Let other voices be heard.