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North Dakota lawmakers vote that 'personhood' starts at conception
Abortion & Life
Written by grizzly   
Friday, 20 February 2009 19:20

From Perth Now, via Agence France-Presse

NORTH Dakota has become the first US state to move towards passing a law that defines "personhood" as starting at the moment of conception, which would effectively outlaw abortion, pro-life groups said. Lawmakers in the North Dakota lower house voted 51 to 41 on Tuesday to pass the Personhood of Children Act, which confers the same basic rights on "all human beings from the beginning of their biological development, including the pre-born, partially born."

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laika   |2009-02-20 22:40:12
"all human beings from the beginning of their biological development, including the pre-born, partially born."

would this include eggs and sperm? or would they be considered "potentially pre-born" or some such? how will a conflict between the health of the personhood of the mother and the health of the personhood of the preborn be handled?

i don't see this as having much of an impact if the wording is so vague and open to interpretation. but then it may not be intended to have much of an impact in the sense that one might expect.
emperorbma   |2009-02-20 22:48:55
Eggs and sperm are tied to the organism that they are gametes of. The gamete cells are not united until conception.
laika   |2009-02-20 23:03:04
hence my possible "potential pre-born" designation. the devil, i've heard, is in the details. there is the potential for the beginning of biological development in the gametes.
emperorbma   |2009-02-20 23:15:49
Ja, but potential isn't actual. The clearest distinction we can draw, fortunately, is between gamete and zygote lineage.

Where it really gets hairy is when we deal with stuff like totipotent stem cells and cloning. I've made a post before about how I think the morality shakes out but someone still found a hole in it... :P

Thank you Kurt Goedel!
laika   |2009-02-21 01:22:58
emperorbma wrote:
Thank you Kurt Goedel!


thank merciful God for Google, so's i have at least a rough chance at keeping up with you lot and your unceasing highbrow references!

emperorbma wrote:
Ja, but potential isn't actual.


but potential is potential.
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 13:06:51
Yeah, but the problem I was having with potential is that this is what "pro choice" folks use to describe an unborn child's life. That isn't "potential," it is "actual."

A gamete is "potential," but the destruction of a gamete is not a destruction of a human life any more than the destruction of a skin cell.
laika   |2009-02-21 17:21:55
emperorbma wrote:
Yeah, but the problem I was having with potential is that this is what "pro choice" folks use to describe an unborn child's life. That isn't "potential," it is "actual."


i was unaware that "potential" was a loaded word in this context.

originally i just meant to playfully suggest that they tighten up their wording before it became law, however, what we are now talking about are degrees of potential.

emperorbma wrote:
A gamete is "potential," but the destruction of a gamete is not a destruction of a human life any more than the destruction of a skin cell.


but both, in common with a fertilized egg, under the right conditions have the potential to become human life. so talk of potential is not entirely frivolous, nor is consideration of the question of the destruction of gametes or skin cells.
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 17:56:15
I don't think of a zygote in terms of potentiality because it is already a new, living, human being.

The difference between a zygote and a gamete is that a fertilized egg is a distinguishably different being than its mother or father. Conception is the first event at which we can actually distinguish the new organism from its parent.  Before conception, the new being doesn't actually exist, but afterward it does and it possesses an entirely separate genetic composition that it will continue for its entire life, however long or short that may be.

A gamete is merely a haploid clone of a mother's or a father's own body cells.  These can potentially fuse to become a zygote, but there is no separate person at play if it is merely gametes being discussed. A zygote, however, is that fusion of two distinct persons' gametes into an entirely new organism. The genetics of a zygote are no longer "descendant line" genetics but "distinct cell line" genetics. Any biological scientist realizes that a zygote is not a cell of its mother or its father but a separate organism. A zygote is not a body part of the mother as her womb or her heart are. A zygote is a different human being at a very early point of its existence.

As I see this, a zygote is not a "potential life" because it is already a different human life from the moment the genomes of the haploid gametes became a new diploid line. Lest we neglect, we too were zygotes before we grew into a newborn baby and into the adults we now are. If it is allowed to live on, it is no different than any other human being. Why should it be treated any differently. then?

The spiritual aspect of this is an entirely different thing, but it ties directly into this perspective. If we have a soul now, how is it that we didn't have a soul then?  For those of a pro-life position the conception is equivalent to when the soul is manifested in a human being. The first moment we are certain that a human being is distinct from its mother and father is when it is considered a human being.
laika   |2009-02-21 17:42:33
emperorbma wrote:
It has an entirely separate genetic composition that it will continue for its entire life.


and that would make it more fully human than a clone from a skin cell?
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 18:13:36
Quote:
and that would make it more fully human than a clone from a skin cell?


This is one of those "Where it really gets hairy" things I talked about above.

Given adequate circumstances, we could theoretically coax a skin cell into becoming a totipotent stem cell. However, even then a totipotent stem cell is not a distinct human being because a zygote basically divides into many totipotent stem cells that are parts of the same being.

In that case, it is clear that a totipotent stem cell is not, in and of itself, a zygote equivalent. There are still some prerequisite conditions in terms of resources and chemical alterations that permit it to act as a new zygote. Only under those conditions and when it grows to the point that it is indistinguishable from having been a zygote, can it really be treated as a new human being.

As I admitted, this is one of the not so clear cases that I've mulled.  My basic conclusion is that it is biologically a human being if and only if it is indistinguishable from a zygote or a post-zygotic cell line. In terms of spirituality, I think that tampering with cloning technology is an action to be undertaken only with the most extreme of spiritual caution and nothing to be toyed with lightly.
metallurge  - re:   |2009-02-21 18:42:51
laika wrote:
and that would make it more fully human than a clone from a skin cell?
Here is the real question, for me. Would a clone from a skin cell possess/be-made-in the image of God? The same for artificially-created embryos.  I am not at all certain that the image of God has anything to whatsoever do with DNA. If life is created artificially by man, in whose image has it really been made?

What are the ramifications of all this for the covenants God has made with mankind? Do they even apply to artificially-created humans? Will our end come as a race of spiritual zombies, wiped from the face of creation?
laika   |2009-02-21 18:47:26
see my reply to emperorbma. wouldn't a monozygotic twin in effect be a clone, carrying the exact genetic information as its parent/sybling?

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:


‘THE CHILD is father to the man.’
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
‘The child is father to the man.’
No; what the poet did write ran,  
‘The man is father to the child.’
‘The child is father to the man!’
How can he be? The words are wild.
metallurge   |2009-02-21 18:51:02
But who is the creator?
metallurge   |2009-02-21 18:52:17
We are tampering with things we do not have the wisdom to understand.
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 19:00:37
Yes, we are. We may understand the natural mechanisms but we haven't a God-given clue as to how the spiritual ties into this situation.
laika   |2009-02-21 19:10:28
metallurge wrote:
We are tampering with things we do not have the wisdom to understand.


i hope i didn't leave the impression that i advocate the cloning of humans. fact is, we already have them and we assume them to have souls like the rest of us. they don't appear to be zombies.
metallurge   |2009-02-21 19:17:37
No, I wasn't thinking that about you.

It's much more of a general concern. Were their names written in the book of life from the foundation of the world?

laika; emphasis added by metallurge wrote:
fact is, we already have them and we assume them to have souls like the rest of us. they don't appear to be zombies.
Yeah. That's what worries me.
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 19:26:28
Like I was saying, I think God is omnipotent enough to ensure that even a cloned person can have a soul. Theoretically, if God wanted to, He could give a machine a soul too... but that's another debate entirely.
metallurge   |2009-02-21 19:42:59
Oh, don't misunderstand me! It certainly is not a question of could...
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 18:59:46
Both are God's children. There is no such thing as a "spiritual zombie" as far as I'm concerned.

The difficulty is when we're dealing with single-cells. At that level, we cannot treat each condition as a human life (for reasons that I make perfectly clear elsehwere) but a zygote or a post-zygote-equivalent cell line can and should be treated as humans.
Entity  - re: re:   |2009-02-22 15:51:11
metallurge wrote:
Will our end come as a race of spiritual zombies, wiped from the face of creation?


In a previous email (11/1/06) to the admin group, you claimed that soulless zombies give chocolate to Wezlo, so at least this end would be beneficial to one person...
metallurge  - Hee Hee   |2009-02-22 16:23:08
For those who do not remember, what Entity is referring to was a tongue-in-cheek proposed Halloween poll for Christdot that I think never ran:

metallurge wrote:
Chocolate?
Milk
Dark
It's all good
I'd give mine to wezlo because I'm a soulless zombie
laika   |2009-02-21 18:40:02
emperorbma wrote:
As I admitted, this is one of the not so clear cases that I've mulled. My basic conclusion is that it is biologically a human being if and only if it is indistinguishable from a zygote or a post-zygotic cell line. In terms of spirituality, I think that tampering with cloning technology is an action to be undertaken only with the most extreme of spiritual caution and nothing to be toyed with lightly.


maybe this is not as hairy a question as you're making it out to be, considering that you probably see clones everyday. don't fertilized human eggs spontaneously clone themselves in the womb fairly regularly?

so... is a monozygotic twin any less human than the slightly older sibling from whose side it sprang? does an 18 year-old twin have less potential than an 18 minute-old human zygote?
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 18:57:13
Quote:
maybe this is not as hairy a question as you're making it out to be, considering that you probably see clones everyday. don't fertilized human eggs spontaneously clone themselves in the womb fairly regularly?


I disagree. It wasn't as simple as you seem to present because humans lose millions of skin cells per day just in the process of basic living and each skin cell that dies is not terminating a human being.

Keyword: they. We don't coerce the situation or cause it to occur. From a biological standpoint, both spontaneous clones are fully equivalent to a post-zygotic cell line. From a spiritual standpoint, if God decides that He wants two human beings from one zygote, what is it to us?

My criteria were specifically intended to limit, however, considering every single human cell to be a human being. The impossibility of claiming these as distinct human lives is underscored by the fact that humans lose millions of skin cells per day just in the process of basic living. Considering that males shed millions of gametes per day, the same must be said of their own gamete lines.
laika   |2009-02-21 19:05:48
emperorbma wrote:
From a biological standpoint, both spontaneous clones are fully equivalent to a post-zygotic cell line.


but only one of them is an exact duplicate of a sibling who is also its parent.

emperorbma wrote:
From a spiritual standpoint, if God decides that He wants two human beings from one zygote, what is it to us?


no problem whatsoever for me, but fertility treatments frequently result in twins, so now were talking God-assisted clones and human-assisted clones in the here and now. are any of them without a soul?
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 19:24:34
Quote:
but only one of them is an exact duplicate of a sibling who is also its parent.


Suppose I have a spontaneous clone. Could you tell me which one is the "original" and which is the "clone?" Think about this one for a bit. I would have to say it but both of them are coequally the parent of the other in some sense.

Quote:
are any of them without a soul?


As I said elsewhere, I think the "spiritual zombie" is a bit of a misunderstanding of the situation. First of all, as far as God is concerned, He alone knows how the soul thing works in the liminal cases. Secondly, all human beings that live are "ensouled" without exception.

The problem is that, in terms of biology, we cannot distinguish a totipotent stem cell from a sub-part of a post-zygotic cell line. Basically, if we didn't make this distinction, every human embryo consists of hundreds of little people! Therefore, only when we can distinguish totipotent stem cell as its own post-zygotic cell line, can it be unequivocally treated as a distinct human.

It's a rather complex thing, but as I said God alone knows how and when He handles the liminal cases.  If I had to guess:
1. Divine foreknowledge might make the problem moot and God has the thing running automatically.
2. God might have provided two souls all along.
3. God might have given the soul as soon as it was evident that it is necessary.
4. God might be supervising some form of "spiritual inheritance" or fission of the original soul into two souls.
laika   |2009-02-21 21:11:27
emperorbma wrote:
Suppose I have a spontaneous clone. Could you tell me which one is the "original" and which is the "clone?"


if i were somehow able to observe the division, then yes.

Quote:
Think about this one for a bit. I would have to say it but both of them are coequally the parent of the other in some sense.


this is my understanding of the situation with "identical" twins: there was one fertilized egg. it exists for some time as a single entity, then it divides.

that may be an imperfect understanding. i'm grappling with the distinction that i think you're making. you're saying that perhaps two distinct "materials" are present pre-division?
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 22:08:08
Quote:
if i were somehow able to observe the division, then yes.

this is my understanding of the situation with "identical" twins: there was one fertilized egg. it exists for some time as a single entity, then it divides.


Okay, let's give a basic run down of how it goes down after fertilization before we discuss this any further. After conception, the single zygote cell divides into several cells until it becomes a ball of cells known as a morula, then into a hollow blastula and then eventually into a blastocyst. The blastocyst and all its predecessors are comprised of undifferentiated totipotent stem cells. After the blastocyst phase, the cells begin to differentiate in the process of gastrulation.

It is only before gastrulation occurs that a "spontaneous cloning" can happen because afterward, the embryo has begun to differentiate its cells into different types. By then, the cells are only pluripotent. If it were to be divided during or after gastrulation, it will miss some of the necessary cell lines for its own survival and spontaneously abort and that's the end of the story.

So, if we accept that this morula, blastula or blastocyst are composed of only totipotent stem cells, which "bunch" is more worthy to be called the "original" when it splits into more than one cell bundle?

Keep also in mind that this all occurs within the first 1-3 days. For the rest of the time, the embryo gradually becomes even more complex, even gaining a heartbeat after about 3 weeks! Can someone say "fearfully and wonderously made?" (Psalm 139:14)

Quote:
that may be an imperfect understanding. i'm grappling with the distinction that i think you're making. you're saying that perhaps two distinct "materials" are present pre-division?


I'm talking about the soul rather than a material difference. I was speculating on how God may or may not have brought about two equally ensouled human beings from the same set of cells.
laika   |2009-02-21 22:06:40
this is interesting. so your understanding is that the "clone" is not a copy of the genetic material of a single, original zygotic personhood? 

emperorbma wrote:
I'm talking about the soul rather than a material difference. I was speculating on how God may or may not have brought about two equally ensouled human beings from the same set of cells.


the souls concern me not a whit; that is the business of God. if a clone lacked a soul, you or i would never know it.

a brain is a brain. juices are juices. electricity is electricity. a human clone would be every bit a human. again, i'm not advocating the production of human clones, but  cloning is just another kind of reproduction, with the end product being a human baby. skin cell clone emperorbma would pretty much be like a twin emperorbma, consisting of the same genetic material.
emperorbma   |2009-02-21 22:23:30
Quote:
this is interesting. so your understanding is that the "clone" is not a copy of the genetic material of a single, original zygotic personhood?


Same genome, same everything, and fully capable of surviving provided that the bundle split off at the right phase of embryogenesis, and every bit as human as the other coinhabitant of the womb. The only physical difference is whether it was in one group of cells or another when the split occurred.  They are, after the split however, different persons...

Another side-note: Most of the splits occur at or before blastulogenesis for some rather obvious reasons. (i.e. it's rather hard to regroup once you've become a hollow ball with a small mass in it)

The thing about the hypothetical skin cell clone is that it isn't a natural effect. However, I wouldn't fail to recognize the humanity of the resultant being.  The difficulty is that, until it is totipotentized and made into a "post-zygotic" cell line, it is not really distinct from me. After it is totipotentized, it still is just a part of me...  only after it has been enabled to become a morula or something like that that we can tell it isn't just a piece of me anymore.
laika   |2009-02-21 23:44:16
i may need to apologize for dragging out this twin/clone business. i'm rethinking it now. if i'm totally wrong, it may be because i tend to simplify ideas into visuals for storage purposes. i'm thinking of this as a chart with fertilized egg, then single entity zygote, then a division of that original. it's looking like the pictures in my head aren't fitting the finer specifics.

as to the soul, you guys may be thinking of something distinct from the body in a way that i don't. i don't picture a ghost in the machine (i used to). Jesus was physically resurrected; we will be physically resurrected; we are physical creatures. my totality as a human animates me, and that's why i think a clone would be human.
metallurge   |2009-02-21 23:58:33
I getcha with respect to the "ghost in the machine" thing. I haven't yet used the word "soul" in this conversation. That's on purpose. :-)

My question revolves around whether DNA is sufficient to encode the full image of God, or if there is something else, something more ineffable, something God-granted and God-issued, that will not be present in human-created life.

I'm not necessarily expecting anyone to give me an answer. I just think it is an interesting question to consider. And it gave me a great excuse to watch Day of the Dead. :-)
emperorbma   |2009-02-22 00:39:34
Quote:
My question revolves around whether DNA is sufficient to encode the full image of God, or if there is something else, something more ineffable, something God-granted and God-issued, that will not be present in human-created life.


Alpha Centauri quote for a good idea...
Quote:
The genetic code does not, and cannot, specify the nature and position of every capillary in the body or every neuron in the brain. What it can do is describe the underlying fractal pattern which creates them.

* Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Nonlinear Genetics"
emperorbma   |2009-02-22 00:56:47
Quote:
i may need to apologize for dragging out this twin/clone business. i'm rethinking it now. if i'm totally wrong, it may be because i tend to simplify ideas into visuals for storage purposes.


Nah, don't worry. Everyone learns in their own way. I tend to think of things as "processes," which has its own strengths and weaknesses.

As for the model of "soul," I wouldn't really deny it outright but I think it has some strong links to the physical substrate of our being to such an extent that we can't make the foolish gnostic "spirit versus matter" nonsense claims. My only real key point is that after the flesh dies, we still live in some form in the presence of God until we're resurrected, although how conscious of it we are is probably unknowable short of going there.

(Luther himself was into a "soul sleep" theory, although one that didn't exclude being in God's presence.  Lutherans in general maintain that the faithful go into God's presence when our flesh "sleeps" but are unaware of this world or its concerns...)
laika   |2009-02-22 01:41:00
emperorbma wrote:
Nah, don't worry.


you guys are too kind.
MakaDad  - So does this mean   |2009-02-22 22:18:27
...that anything that impedes implantation is murder?
emperorbma   |2009-02-22 23:01:53
Quite possibly. The only problem is that we can't always tell whether a failure to implant is natural or artificially induced. Only a few cases are pretty clear on that.

Things like the "morning after" pill are a certain and forseeable risk of causing failure to implant.  Other things may or may not be as clear. The thing is, since it is not always as clear as the "morning after" pill, it is largely an issue of conscience as to how much risk one is willing to take that something might cause an implantation failure to be taken into consideration before using it.
holmegm  - re: So does this mean   |2009-02-23 06:34:41
MakaDad wrote:
...that anything that impedes implantation is murder?


I've always found that pro-implantation-interference argument puzzling.

A certain percentage of people fall off of bridges. That doesn't make it OK to push them.
Entity  - re: So does this mean   |2009-02-23 08:53:54
MakaDad wrote:
...that anything that impedes implantation is murder?

Many pro-life people will not use the pill, Norplant, other hormonal forms of birth control, or the IUD for specifically that reason.
MakaDad  - re:   |2009-02-23 13:27:28
But that's the can of worms that this opens.

If a fertilized egg fails to implant, then its death is the death of a person.

If that sort of death won't be investigated, or actions won't be taken on cases, then why bother with this law?

Even unintentional deaths get investigated, and anything that contributes to the death of a person is dealt with. So, what activities and chemicals and actions that decrease the chance of implantation are considered active participation in the death of a person?

I'm not trying to make a philosophical or theological argument here, I'm trying to figure out why this could possibly be considered a quality piece of legislation. The purpose of it isn't what I'm talking about, it's the execution.

Making laws that won't be implemented except in certain cases, just to make a point, is bad legislation.
Entity   |2009-02-23 13:39:15
One needs enough evidence to indict before prosecuting. Since the government does not currently check waste water for fertilized eggs, it has no knowledge that a murder has been committed. However, it could lead to the outlawing of such medications as they could lead to ending of conceived life, in the way that drunk driving is illegal even though it rarely kills.
emperorbma   |2009-02-23 23:55:35
Even if the government did sift through waste water, it probably wouldn't consider finding an aborted embryo a murder given its stance on legalized abortion.

There's another factor in this, though. Those few cases of violent death in drunk driving (which are still statistically quite far above the average and especially high in some states more than others) are poignant enough to speak for the strong drunk driving laws. Not meaning this to be rude, but merely as a statement of fact.

Since I'm actually in a driving class (due to the fact that I decided to wait until now to get my license) and today happened to be the day they showed the films of the results of drunk drivers... well, its kinda fresh on the mind.

From what I figure, it is a lot harder to draw the same graphic sympathy for an undifferentiated ball of 128 human cells, even though it is just as human as the victims of drunk driving. This is meant to denigrate neither case, since both are extremely heinous situations. The thing is, there is a certain neoteny and "commonality of experience" at play in the one that isn't yet found in the other.  Translated, few people sympathize with an aborted embryo in the same way as they do a slain infant, child or adolescent.
laika   |2009-02-24 00:15:30
emperorbma wrote:
Even if the government did sift through waste water, it probably wouldn't consider finding an aborted embryo a murder given its stance on legalized abortion.


but recall that we're talking about a state law that would change the legal status of a fertilzed egg by guaranteeing its personhood.

emperorbma wrote:
From what I figure, it is a lot harder to draw the same graphic sympathy for an undifferentiated ball of 128 human cells, even though it is just as human as the victims of drunk driving.


what a difference a brain makes. in that sense, "commonality of experience" is impossible for the 128 undifferentiated cells, and most people intuit that on some level. lacking a sensory organ of any kind, the 128 are cells incapable of any human experience at all, aren't they?
emperorbma   |2009-02-24 00:35:34
Quote:
but recall that we're talking about a state law that would change the legal status of a fertilzed egg by guaranteeing its personhood.


Good point. The question is if it would stand against the "incorporation" of Roe v. Wade if it actually came to the test. I'm thinking the Supreme Court makes the same ruling it always has.

Quote:
what a difference a brain makes.


Actually, the brain doesn't make much of a difference though. Most abortions occur after the brain or, at the very least, the cells that constitute it, have already started to form. (Third-Fourth week after conception) Of course, the Third-Fourth week is also the first that a mother generally is aware that she is pregnant, coincidentally...

Quote:
lacking a sensory organ of any kind, the 128 are cells incapable of any human experience at all, aren't they?


Again, we're left with the quandary of the sensory disabled. We don't consider them less human, either, even though they clearly lack most of the kind of experience we can intuit.
laika   |2009-02-24 00:36:38
emperorbma wrote:
Again, we're left with the quandary of the sensory disabled. We don't consider them less human, either, even though they clearly lack most of the kind of experience we can intuit.


very thought-provoking angle.
laika   |2009-02-23 14:02:32
good points regarding implantation. who knows in what ways a potential mother could be creating conditions inhospitable to the implantation of a fertilized egg? too much stress from working two jobs? too much diet soda? who knows?

MakaDad wrote:
I'm not trying to make a philosophical or theological argument here, I'm trying to figure out why this could possibly be considered a quality piece of legislation. The purpose of it isn't what I'm talking about, it's the execution.

Making laws that won't be implemented except in certain cases, just to make a point, is bad legislation.




my thoughts exactly. and this may be nothing more than Feel Good legislation.
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