| Conception’s Significance |
- Is an Embryo a Baby? | Scientifically (this post)
- Is an Embryo a Baby? | Biblically
| Resolved series |
- Resolutions That Matter
- God and Reason
- How to Know If I Am Saved
- Is an Embryo a Baby? | Scientifically
- Is an Embryo a Baby? | Biblically
A Good Question
Let me start by saying that this is a good question. It’s a question that most of us have wondered at some point and one that we all need an answer to. Our answer here not only informs our position on current issues, but the decisions we make in starting or planning our families. So, it’s incredibly important that we don’t just have an answer to this question, but that we have a certainty about why this is the answer.
Before beginning, let me clarify my question a little. Our title here is, “Is an Embryo a Baby?”, and an embryo is defined as “the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception”. However, the term embryo is often used to describe the developing human individual not just from implantation, but from fertilization (conception) onward. In using the term embryo here, I do mean the developing human embryo from fertilization onward. In other words, we will be asking this question for the “developing human individual” at conception (the zygote). A zygote is the term used to describe the first cell formed during the process of fertilization (conception). Since embryo is a more familiar term than zygote, I hope you don’t mind me using embryo here more loosely to include the “developing human individual” from conception onward.
Taking an Objective Approach
By way of context, I want to let you know that I plan to discuss this question objectively here. Please don’t let my objectivity imply that I don’t care about what this question means to all of us. Whenever we lost two embryos to miscarriage, we wanted an answer to this question too (we shared some of our story in a post for Mother’s Day). We know how hard this question can be, especially for those who have lost an embryo or have found themselves ending a pregnancy. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to put the emphasis of this post on finding the answer to this question objectively through science. Before we end this discussion in the next post, I do promise to take a little time to talk about my heart on the matter.
I hope that this first, scientific portion of the discussion might even help answer this question for those who don’t share our faith, whether they are reading this directly or you are sharing with them. Next time, we’ll add to this by looking through the lens of the Bible to develop the more full-fledged answer. Bear in mind that while the Bible serves to confirm and elaborate on the answer, science alone can answer this question. Here’s an outline of what we’ll discuss here:
- When Does Life Begin?
- Is That Life a Person?
- What About the Soul?
- Is a Human Individual Always a Person?
When Does Life Begin?
Biology, the study of life, is the most appropriate science to determine when life begins. It provides certain characteristics of living things that define something as alive. These characteristics of living things all become present precisely at the moment of conception (fertilization). It is the process of fertilization that forms the first cell (characteristic) with a unique genetic code (characteristic) that begins to grow and develop (characteristic), using materials and energy to do so (characteristic) while responding to its external environment (characteristic) and maintaining a stable internal environment (characteristic). This is the reason that virtually all biologists would agree that life begins at conception. That is, an embryo is alive from conception.
We’ve provided a more detailed analysis on each of these characteristics to determine precisely when they become present for the embryo in a separate page for those who are curious for more detail: When Does Life Begin? | Scientifically
Is That Life a Person?
The question that divides opinions is whether this ‘living thing’ is a person, whether an embryo is a baby. So, let’s start by defining the term ‘person’. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a person as a “human individual”.
We are asking: Is an embryo a person? Using something called the law of identity, we can substitute that word “person” with its definition “a human individual”. So, the more specific form of our question is this: Is an embryo a human individual?
Conception is precisely the moment that the DNA of the embryo is formed. In examining this DNA, we can confirm that this ‘living thing’ is human (i.e. the embryo has human DNA from conception). But, is the embryo an individual human organism or part of another human organism? For example, is the embryo part of the mother like a tumor? To determine this, let’s look closer at the embryo’s DNA to see if it is unique.
We all know that DNA can be used to solve crimes. That’s because the differences in our DNA identify us as individuals. The DNA formed at conception is uniquely distinct from both the mother’s and the father’s DNA, which confirm that the embryo is not only human but is an individual human. Science confirms the embryo is a person by definition: At conception, the embryo is a human individual.
We’ve provided a more detailed discussion on this question in a separate page for those who are curious for more detail: When Is a Person a Person? | Scientifically
What About the Soul?
In exploring our question, Is an Embryo a Baby, here’s what we’ve found scientifically:
- A person (baby) is defined as a human individual.
- An embryo (zygote) first becomes alive at conception.
- This embryo is human at conception, having fully human DNA.
- This embryo is an individual human organism at conception, having uniquely distinct DNA.
At this point we can conclusively say that science teaches us the first cell formed at fertilization is a human individual. Scientific observation definitively shows that an embryo is a person at conception; an embryo is a baby at conception.
What’s left then? Why do some still object to this conclusion? The most common objection is that there is more to what it means to be a person. What about the soul? The problem here is that the soul is not a scientific concept. More to the point, because the soul is unobservable, scientific observation cannot provide any insight into whether and when the soul is present.
While the Bible does have an answer to this question for the embryo at conception, let’s put a pin in that. If we must ignore the Bible, then the soul can really only be understood as a social concept. So, while the natural sciences can’t help us, perhaps the social sciences can, specifically history.
Is a Human Individual Always a Person?
Do we have any example from history where a human individual was not regarded as having a soul? Has society ever provided a human individual that was not considered a person? The answer is yes, but the examples are tragic:
From the 15th to the 19th century, the enslavement of African people was justified by society on the grounds that they weren’t persons, that they didn’t have souls. But, just as for embryos at conception, by every objective measure it was undeniable that they were human individuals. Not unlike now, scientists of the day attempted to justify their enslavement by twisting this clear observation of science.[1] This makes my gut churn. Through the lens of history, we look back with sorrow on how society justified murder and abuse on the fallacy that a human individual was not a person.
In 1933, another example emerged, the holocaust, where a nation justified the imprisonment, scientific study, and murder of millions of Jews, Russians, Slavic and other peoples on the grounds that they were not people. Again, by every scientific observation, these people were undeniably human individuals, but the Nazi philosophy did not recognize their humanity and did not see them as people. Author and historian David Smith explains, “The Nazis were explicit about the status of their victims. They were Untermenschen — subhumans — and as such were excluded from the system of moral rights and obligations that bind humankind together. It’s wrong to kill a person, but permissible to exterminate a rat.”[2] In this book, “Less Than Human”, Smith explains that underlying these atrocities in history lies a philosophy of dehumanization that justifies the mistreatment of another human individual by making that individual out to be less than a person.
The famous paraphrase of George Santayana’s quote is aptly applied here that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.” So, what do these examples from history teach us? They teach us that there is no difference between the human individual and the person. To be a human individual is to be a person. The fabrication of this distinction has been consistently met with sorrow through the lens of history. As we have seen, in the most objective sense of the term, the embryo is indeed a human individual from conception. We must refuse to dehumanize[3] this baby embryo. Eventually, history will once again look back on the justifications our society has used and connect the dots to every other example of dehumanization in history.
We’ve provided a more detailed discussion on this question in a separate page for those who are curious for more detail: When Is a Person a Person? | Scientifically
Next Time: Is an Embryo a Baby in the Bible?
Next time we’ll explore this same question from a biblical perspective. We’ll also spend a little time at the end of that post to talk about the weight of answer so that I can express my heart on this issue rather than just the information.
[1] Dr. James Hunt presented a paper to the London Anthropological Society in 1864 with the horribly offensive title “The Negro’s Place in Nature”
[2] Smith, David Livingstone. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. 2011. St. Martin’s Press
[3] The National Abortion Rights Action League made it clear their position was based on dehumanization when they condemned the “antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses” in a tweet on February 7, 2016.
Thank you so much for all the researching that has clearly gone into this subject. This post was very informative. It gave words and evidence to what seems obvious in such an objective light. It clears up the waters that have been stirred to muddy the issue here. Very helpful.