PBA301H: Scientific Consensus on Fertilization as Beginning of a New Organism

Human life begins at fertilization. Fertilization is the creation of a new individual organism.

• A Scientific View of When Life Begins

This is bad news for abortion advocates. Many become anti-science or try to shift the question.

• Dr. Fellows debate with Maaike on March 18, 2021:
  • He was conflating the term “live birth” with “being alive”
  • “Live birth” doesn't mean you're not alive until you're born, it just means you were born alive
  • He's misapplying a term from OB/GYN to embryology
  • He contradicted himself by using terms like “fetal death” or “kill”
• people confuse viability with vitality

The author of the CSB328H textbook apparently contests that there is a clear scientific answer¹⁾, even while taking the view that fertilization is the creation of a new organism.

“Are scientists agreed that human life begins at fertilization?”

(Scott Gilbert:)No. There are several scientifically defensible positions as to when human life begins. One position is that human life begins when the human egg and sperm nuclei fuse at fertilization. This is the “genetic view.” A second position is that human life begins when the embryo becomes an individual. This is the time, 14 days after fertilization, when each embryo can produce only one individual, rather than twins or triplets. In religious terms, this would mean that ensoulment (whatever that may be) must occur after day 14, since twins are separate individuals. In the United Kingdom, this 14-day “embryologic view” of human individuality is the basis for human biological research, and it has been adopted by the entire biomedical research community there. It has the force of law in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority that licenses and governs Britain’s embryo and stem cell research. A third position is that human life begins when the human-specific electroencephalogram (EEG) is acquired at around 25 weeks. Since our society has defined human death as the loss of the EEG pattern (and not, say, when the heart stopping or the cells dye), some scientists have argued that the acquisition of this EEG pattern be considered the time when the fetus becomes human. The fourth position is that human life begins when it can be metabolically independent from the mother, the traditional “birthday.” So there are several scientifically defensible positions as to when a new human life begins”

See also:

• Science Can't Say When a Baby's Life Begins

Let's take these four positions in reverse order:

The fourth position is that human life begins when it can be metabolically independent from the mother, the traditional “birthday.”

Does any credible scientific source actually believe this? With in utero surgery, with neo-natal intensive care units and viability near the mid-point of pregnancy? That “human life begins at birth”? What is that individual organism before birth?

This is not a scientifically defensible position. This is just the dependency error in SLED. Being metabolically independent does not tell us when a new individual human organism has come into existence – just when that new human organism is metabolically independent.

A third position is that human life begins when the human-specific electroencephalogram (EEG) is acquired at around 25 weeks. Since our society has defined human death as the loss of the EEG pattern (and not, say, when the heart stopping or the cells dye), some scientists have argued that the acquisition of this EEG pattern be considered the time when the fetus becomes human.

First, there is huge debate over brain death.

Second, note the qualifier “human-speciic” – that's because other EEG patterns are likely measurable well before then.

But more importantly, the acquisition of the EEG pattern is very different from the loss of this pattern. The beginning of life is quite different from the end of life.

Brain death is the complete and irreversible loss of the pattern. Afterwards, there's no getting it back. Yet before displaying the pattern, is there any surprise that it will typically be seen around 25 weeks? And, what exactly is the new individual organism that came into existence at fertilization before the acquisition of this pattern?

The acquisition of the pattern is an age-dependent feature of human development. This is just the level of development error in SLED. The EEG pattern doesn't tell us when a new individual human organism has come into existence, just when they are old enough for their brain to function at this particular level.

• Using the definition of death to mark the beginning of life
  • cardio-pulmonary death is the legally recognized point
  • complete irreversible brain death (this specifically), when all coordinated functioning for the overall good of that human being ceases to exist, is how we can define death more accurately (most medically accurate)
  • fertilization is when we first gain that coordinating functioning

A second position is that human life begins when the embryo becomes an individual. This is the time, 14 days after fertilization, when each embryo can produce only one individual, rather than twins or triplets.

http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/training/classroom/science/twinning

From the CCBR classroom:

Just because some humans have the ability to split into two, doesn’t mean that prior to the split one human didn’t exist. Take the case of the flatworm. If a flatworm is cut in half, each half will regenerate into two separate, fully-functioning flatworms. But prior to this separation a flatworm nonetheless existed. Likewise, even though in rare situations one human splits into two, one human existed before that split happened, and the beginning of that one human still was at fertilization.

This is the widely accepted view.

http://gerardnadal.com/2010/01/07/more-from-the-scientific-community-on-the-identity-and-status-of-the-human-embryo/

If we were talking about climate change, the scientific consensus would be clear despite some minority objections. But we're talking about abortion, so some in the same group of people who argue it's anti-science to blow minority objections out of proportion on climate change now become anti-science themselves and cling to the minority objections.

Ironically, this seems to be the view that Gilbert's own textbooks support anyways.

Dr. Gerard M. Nadal responds to Gilbert's comments²⁾:

Gilbert boxed himself in with his truthful statement relative to organismal identity. What he’s doing here is an attempt to present the reader with the broad range of opinions within the scientific community. Unfortunately for Gilbert, he speaks with great certitude of dogs possessing canine essence from the moment of fertilization until death, but does not apply that to humans for PC reasons.

To see his gross inconsistency, take all of these arguments he makes about humans, brainwave activity, cognition, etc, and change the word human to dog. Then compare that to his original statement about the essential identity of a dog in chapter 2. It’s self-contradictory.

The truth is that an organism’s essential identity, biologically speaking, is contained within its genome, its DNA. Let’s forget God and metaphysics for a moment and argue from a strictly atheistic perspective.

Without the ‘contaminating’ dimensionality of religion, the science becomes clearer.

An organism does not express all of its potential functions at once. Genetically, they come on line at different periods of development. None of my children has become pregnant or sired a child. They’re pre-pubescent. Because they have not reached full expression of their potential, they are no less human. Their humanity is a function of their genetic identity, regardless of developmental stage. A human organism can be no other. It is not a nonidentifiable entity until some arbitrarily established performance. It is a human organism from the moment of fertilization, just as Gilbert’s dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization.

Gilbert can’t spin his way out of this one. All he can do is lay down a smokescreen to ingratiate himself with the widest audience of professors to induce their adopting his book for their courses.

and even if there were uncertainty about when a human being's life begins…wouldn't that uncertainty actually be an argument against abortion?

What Gilbert is actually doing is using his credentials as a biologist while advancing a philosophical question. Of course there's no scientific consensus on the question of when “personhood” begins - because that's not a scientific question (whether or not a biological human being should have moral status, etc). But there's a consensus as to when a new individual organism, same species as the parents, comes into existing, and Gilbert's own Developmental Biology sums it up nice in the very title of the chapter: “Fertilization: Beginning a New Organism.” And our philosophical position ought to at least take into account what we know from science, but the philosophy is a topic for another time.

Dr. Stacy Trasancos summarizes Scott F Gilbert's sleight of hand well: