Ohhh! The Humanity (Part 5)

Asexual Ethics

What does it mean to be a 'human'? In this series we are examining our definitions of being human from several viewpoints.

In Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV we examined the diversity of opinion, basic biology, sexual ethics, and In Vitro reproduction aspects of what it means to be human. The final part in this series looks at the issues with asexual reproduction of humans, focusing on stem cells and cloning as examples of asexual reproduction.

Stem cells dividing.

Stem Cells

Stem cells are cells that can become other cells types. They can be thought of as universal cells. Stem cells come from bone, blood, or umbilical cords.

It is technologically possible for a stem cell to be developed into a fetus. Every stem cell, under the right conditions can become another human being. There are no documented cases of a birth using this method, but its potential exists.

More probable is the development of the stem cell into a part of a human. By creating the proper environment in the lab, the scientists are experimenting with growing individual organs from stem cells. These conditions cause the stem cells not to reproduce a entire human.  The creation of ears, thyroids, and even skin from stem cells are all under research.

Stems cells can become other cell types.

Stem Cells Sources

Stem cells can originate from embryos and adults. Early in this research, retrieving an embryo’s stem cells required destroying the embryo. As mentioned earlier, this destruction was classified as murder and therefore is a sin.

More research has allowed scientists to trigger adult cells to return to an embryonic state, requiring no destruction of an embryo. These adult cells that return to an embryo state could theoretically be grown into adult humans. I was able to find no clear moral statement from a major religion on the morality of these adult cells being converted back into embryonic cells.

Cloning is Confusing

This technology to control the mechanics of what goes on inside a cell, is very confusing morally. As individuals we can choose to see a stem cell as a potential human only requiring some tools to make it start. We can also see these stem cells as just a small piece of someones body that they can choose to use or not. Both are true and false at the same time.

Field of cloned corn.

What about growing a replacement heart instead of growing a human with a stem cell? If a loved one is dieing and a new organ could be grown to save their lives, are we murdering them by saying no to the organ growth? Or are we murdering a new potential human by misusing those stem cells?

Another moral approach would be to consider stem cells as a part of the human they came from. Just as when we scratch ourselves and remove live cells, stem cells are just a piece of our bodies removed for a purpose.

What if we do use one of our cells to grow a copy of ourselves? Cloning a person is often considered immoral from both scientific and religious viewpoints. This simple and often emotional response to cloning misses the fine details of what is actually going on.

Can we clone a heart to replace the bad one inside us? What about heart and lungs? What about heart, lungs, liver and spine? Where does the line between “replacement” and “full human” get drawn? Perhaps we should prohibit the growing of brains? What about part of the brain?

Confusing cloning.

Does a clone have a soul? Do we cause god to attach a soul to clone? If we can force God's hand in this way, then can God not say “no” to giving us souls?

 If God does not put a soul in a clone, then is a clone human?

What rights should a clone have?

Stem Cells and other forms of asexual reproduction are transforming our understanding of the what goes on when humans are developed, opening up medicinal possibilities to extend and create life.

Summary

In this series, we have shown that our traditional views of ethics about what defines a human are challenged by a deeper understanding of what we are. The line between “life” and “human” are difficult to pin down with out making assumptions about things we can not prove with evidence.

The “common wisdom” approach to humanness is clearly only partial. As science and technology drives forward, religion will continue to play “catch-up” defining the morality of new unforeseen possibilities.  Like with freedom, the details of how humanity is formed will require us to continually re-examine what we believe.

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V

Be sure to subscribe to this blog in order to follow the explorations.

Ohhh! The Humanity (Part 3)

Sexual Ethics

What does it mean to be a 'human'? In this series we are examining our definitions of being human from several viewpoints. In Part I of this series we explored the idea that we each have our definition of humanness and that this view changes with time and culture. In Part II some background information about the biology of conception was presented.

Part III looks at the ethics issues with sexual reproduction of humans.

A zygote at its beginning.

Sexual Reproduction

When we think of reproducing humans, we normally think of a man and woman having sex. Mechanically this is about getting a single sperm into a ready egg that beings the process of growth leading to an adult human. Until 1978, this was the only way to have a baby.

A Zygote is the initial cell formed when a sperm and egg combine. It is also used to describe the mass of cells that divide. Zygotes are composed of cells that have not yet become other types of cells. Cells in a zygote have the potential to become any kind of other body cell and are sometimes known as stem cells.

A zygote.

Many religions maintain that the moment a zygote is formed, God puts a soul with the zygote. This belief has no direct observable evidence and is an act of faith on the part of the believers. Using this description of “soul attachment”, believers then claim that the zygote is a human.

Science indicates that one quarter of all fertilized zygotes die before ten weeks of development. Frequently this occurs because of errors in the zygotes genetic material.

It would seem, from the religious perspective, God is choosing which souls are becoming humans by chemical selection early in life much more often than humans do. Some believe that the world is cursed and miscarriage is God's way of limiting the curse.  Others believe that miscarriages are caused by sins of the mother.

Philosophy views procreation as a fundamental human right. Rather than examining the means of reproduction or miscarriage, philosophy focuses on the moral right of human beings to reproduce if both adults are willing.

Land of the those who are no longer human.

Masturbation

A few religions believe that every sperm and egg are sacred. The focus is upon individual cells as part of a potential human being. This viewpoint suggests that every wasted egg/sperm is a failed potential human being.  This view of humanity however makes every man who masturbates is a mass murder, committing genocide on an epic scale. Women who masturbate do not kill eggs and are therefore are only sexually deviant, but still sinful.

Science takes the view that sperm cannot reproduce. Sperm outside the body quickly dies. This means sperm is a not a being by itself, but a part of a human. This view equates blood cells, brain cells, and muscle cells to be equal with sperm cells.

Sexual reproduction is well understood by science and religion. Both ethical sources have strong established views on how we become human. This is not true for other means of reproduction.

In our next entry, we will look at the the morality In Vitro (test tube) reproduction.

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V

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Ohhh! The Humanity (Part 2)

The Biology of Conception

What does it mean to be a 'human'? In this series we are examining our definitions of being human from several viewpoints. In Part I of this series we explored the idea that we each have our definition of humanness and that this view changes with time and culture.

Moment of conception.

This entry focuses on the biology of human conception. We will survey the basic biology of what happens in conception. Using this information we will have a reference point to discuss the moral issues of what a human is resulting from religion, science, and philosophy.

We all think we understand what sex is and how babies are formed. Most of us however learned what we know from our high school classes or perhaps doctors when we were expecting children.


 The details of the biology are important if we want to understand what humans are.  Biology is the mechanics of our starting point to come into existence.

Definition

'Conception' is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “The action of conceiving a child or of a child being conceived.”  Since this is a bit  of a circular definition, we can dig deeper into the dictionary to find that 'Conceiving' is the “creation of an embryo by fertilizing an egg.”

To understand conception as a process, we first need to inspect what happens before it. We will probe sperm, eggs, and the different ways they can start the process to become human.  As we will see, even the dictionary definitions used here are not accurate to the possibilities of conception.

Egg

Almost all eggs are produced inside human female fetus while she is still in the womb. Only about a dozen new eggs are built in the female body after this initial stage of development. Unlike men who produce sperm cells through their lifetime, women are born with almost all their potential children.

Egg cell.

A female baby's ovaries contain about 1,000,000 (one million) eggs at birth. About two/thirds of the eggs die before menstruation begins. This leaves about 350,000 eggs in each mature woman.

During her life time, the average woman will release about 400 eggs though ovulation. During each month of menstruation about 1,000 (one thousand) of the eggs die.

Eggs contain a unique half of the DNA strands from the woman. Every egg is unique copy of part of the woman's parents. Most eggs are generally better formed than sperm and therefore more viable for reproduction.

Eggs by themselves can very, very rarely conceive. More on this later.

Sperm cell.

Sperm

Male human's have 'sperm factories'. Sperm are generated starting with puberty. Thousands of sperm cells are built with each breath taken. Barring accidents, this process continues until the man dies.

 The average man produces upwards of a 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) sperm in their lifetime. The majority of sperm die by being broken down by the man's body into component parts.  Sometimes sperm will automatically released as nocturnal ejections during sleep.

Sperm contain a unique half of the DNA strands from the man. Each sperm is a unique mixture of genetic material from the father and mother. Like snowflakes, no two sperm are alike.

Sperm, by itself, cannot conceive.  There are some medical speculations that this is possible, but no concrete evidence of it exists yet.

Conception

There are several different ways currently to have conception to occur:

• Sexual - by sperm and egg uniting during intercourse.
• In Vitro - where egg and sperm are united in a lab.
• Asexual - where a single egg splits to form a virgin birth.
• Cloning - inducing a stem cell to grow into a new exact copy human.

Sexual reproduction.

Sexual reproduction has the union of a single sperm with a single egg creating (or conceiving) a new, unique combination of genetic material.

Half of the man's genetic material from the sperm combine with and half of the woman's genetic material in the egg to start a process that leads to a new human.

Sexual reproduction is what we most often think of as conception.  Sexual reproduction involves sexual intercourse.

In Vitro reproduction.

In Vitro reproduction happens when eggs and sperm are taken from humans.

This process involves taking the genetic material from the sperm and placing it into the egg in a laboratory. The egg is then allowed to divide until it becomes an ovum with eight (8) cells. The ovum is then implanted into the woman's fallopian tube. 

Many eggs and sperm are united at once in the laboratory then placed into the woman often leading twins and triplet births.

8 celled ovum.

Most In Vitro procedures have left over ovum which are placed in storage for future potential use.

Many people have sperm or eggs extracted from their bodies for future use by In Vitro procedures allow reproduction in case of death or other personal reasons.

Ova, sperm, and eggs can be deep frozen for many years and still remain potential humans.

Asexual reproduction is when eggs can be coaxed by nature or science into creating a human embryo without sperm. This process is known as 'parthenogenesis' in science and as 'virgin birth' in religion.

Asexual reproduction.

Asexual reproduction is when one half of the genetic material of the egg makes a mirror copy of itself to combine with. It is almost as if the egg uses its reflection in a mirror to mate with. Eggs can be coaxed into creating a human embryo without sperm. This means it is possible to create a human without conception.

Virgin birth means it is possible to create a human without a human sperm. Plants and other animals have been documented to have virgin births. Natural virgin births have been claimed but there are no concrete evidence of it yet in humans Its occurrence in humans is so rare that it is viewed by most as miraculous.

Cloning reproduction is a procedure where a single cell is used to create a genetic duplicate of the organism. The cloning to-date has used the process of transferring a nucleus from a donor adult cell to an egg that has no nucleus. If the egg begins to divide normally it is transferred into the uterus of a surrogate mother. There are other ways of cloning being developed that use stem cells and do not involve an egg.

Dolly the cloned sheep.

The cloning process always involves using an exact copy of the DNA in the single 'parent' to start the process of creating a new organism. 

Cloning is basically a method of making a copy of an existing life form.

Famously, Dolly is a sheep that was cloned in 1996 using early technology. Dolly's conception required 277 eggs that developed into 29 embryos of which only one survived to become an adult sheep.

As we have observed, there are many ways for conception to happen. Our standard view of conception has been challenged in the last few decades as we learn more and more about how the process works.

In practical terms we think in terms of sexual reproduction being how humans are made. This view has been useful in helping us to understand how we came to be. With recent learning and new technologies it does not seem rational to define a human by how it is conceived. Each of the methods used ends in building a human creature.

In our next entry, we will look at the morality of these methods and their implications on how humans are started.

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V

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Ohhh! The Humanity! (Part 1)

What does it mean to be a 'human'? When do we become humans? How can we tell if something is a human or not?  Are all persons humans?  When do we cease to be human? What are the elements that make up a human?  Part 2 is here.

One human or two?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “the human person, made in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual.” More simply, a human has two parts: a body and a soul. The soul exists before and after the body. When a soul is attached to the body, it is a human. This view of two parts to being human is sometimes called “dualism”.

Biology science tells us that humans are “primates of the family Hominidae with a well-developed brain making them capable of reason.” A mind emerges from how the body is put together. Science's concept is that body and the mind are not two things, but one. This one thing view of what makes a human is technically called “monism”.

From some philosophical views we are told that we think therefore we are. Thinking is what makes a person different from all other matter. These ideas can be expanded to include aliens as a part of person-hood. A human then becomes just a specific type of person, in the class of thinkers.

The human within.

This small sample of the debate about the definition of 'human' is at the heart of many struggles in our society today. Abortion, the death penalty, cloning, stem cell research, and even basic freedoms are all subject to arguments raging across the planet. At the root of them is a disagreement about what it is to be human.

We develop our opinions of humanness from our own experiences. Our lives, as lived, give us a sense of being human. We examine ourselves then thrust the result upon others. From religion, science and philosophy we are given ideas about what we are. We are left to determine, each for ourselves, what we are.

Assumptions about what we are, define who we are. When we threaten those assumptions, we lose our own context. Our self knowledge allows us to interact with the world in known ways. Redefining ourselves is a a most basic threat to our self identity. Changing our definitions of what we are scares us.

Humans: all are different, all are the same.

The journey between what we think and what we will come to know requires traveling through a valley of doubt. This journey is one worth taking as it leads us to a better of understanding of who we are. In this and in several of the next posts, we will be exploring the different views of what it means to be 'human'.

Less Than Human

There is no common definition of what it means to be human. A standard meaning of human that all can agree to for all time may not be possible.  The definition of 'human' changes by time and culture. There are many ways that humans are divided into classes that are perceived superior and inferior. Sub-humans, slaves, and not-yet-humans are just some of the ideas used to define what is human and what is not.

In ancient Sparta, if a baby was considered puny or deformed it was thrown away.  Until a council of elders examined the baby, it was not a human.  Once the baby past the test it became a human.

Dividing human-ness.

The traditional Indian caste system divided the labor and power of individuals according to strict lines. Person-hood was defined people as more human or less human depending upon their origin and birth.  The rights, responsibilities and potential types of careers were determined by caste.

In the original U.S. Constitution, humanity was segregated by a value system that designated persons who were not free as being only counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation and taxation.  This multi-class system determined humans in gradations between human and property.

Nazi's described Jews, gypsies and others as Untermenschen or sub-humans.  Sub-humans did not need to be considered as having rights and were seen as a drag on society's progress.  Killing a sub-human was not murder, but rather eugenics to protect the gene pool.

Less than human?

Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide thought of Tutsis as cockroaches rather than people. Similarly to the Nazis, Tutsis where defined as pests. Pests were viewed as a contamination that needed elimination.

In each of these cases, actions based on the definition of human seemed  right and just.  The definition of what is a human allowed certain behaviors.  

Even our current culture provides us with a context for defining what we are. Our definition of humanity allows us to act with each other in ways that seem fit for that moment and place.  These older and foreign definitions of humanity seem alien to our current ways of thinking.  They should however cause us to pause and reflect and ask if our definitions are correct because they are familiar.

In future posts, we will examine humans from the biological, spiritual, and philosophical perspectives to see how this can inform us on who we 'humans' are.

Be sure to subscribe to this blog in order to follow the explorations.

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V