Embryos, Dignity, and Resort to Authority Part I

Thank you Steve for your continuing and searching inquiry into the moral worth of embryos and fetuses.  Steve wonders whether the question can be settled without resort to authority.  Professor Robert George answers “yes” and “no” in a forthcoming article, “Embryo Ethics,” which will be published in Daedulas.  Yes, the issue can be resolved without resort to theological authority.  But, no, it can’t be resolved without resort to some authority, and he rests his case on the authorities of science and philosophy. His response also answers the arguments for affording embryos diminished worth brought forth (but not shared by) Eduardo.  I’ll lay out his argument in three posts, the first arguing that we need not rely on theological argument or theological authority to resolve the issue, the second exploring the scientific authority, and the third making the philosophical inquiry.

George frames the issue:  “At the heart of the debate over embryo-destructive research, then, are two fundamentals questions: what – or who – is a human embryo, and what is owed to a human embryo as a matter of justice.”

He begins his essay by demonstrating the irrelevance of theological arguments.  He says:  “My view is that we should resolve our national debate over embryo-destructive research on the basis of the best scientific evidence as to when the life of a new human being begins and the most careful philosophical reasoning as to what is owed to nascent human life.  Faith can, I believe, motivate us to stand up and speak out in defense of human life and dignity.  And religious people should never hesitate to do that.  But we need not rely on religious faith to tell us whether a human embryo is a new human life or whether all human beings – irrespective of not only of race, ethnicity and sex, but also irrespective of age, size, stage of development or condition of dependency – possess full moral worth and dignity. The application of fundamental philosophical principles in light of facts established by modern embryological science is more than sufficient for that task.”

In a footnote, he adds:  “For what it is worth, I should point out that the Catholic Church does not try to draw scientific inferences about the humanity or distinctness of the human embryo from theological propositions about ensoulment.  In fact, it works the other way around.  Someone who wanted to talk the Pope into declaring that the human embryo is "ensouled”—which is something that up to this point the Catholic Church has never declared—would have to prove his point by marshaling (among other things) the scientific facts.  The theological conclusion would be drawn on the basis of (among other things) the findings of science about the self-integration, distinctness, unity, determinateness, etc. of the developing embryo.  So things work exactly the opposite of the way some advocates of embryo-destructive research who think they know what the Catholic Church says about "ensoulment" imagine they work.”

Stay tuned, next installment will address scientific authority.