On The Definition Of 'Human Embryo' And The Criteria For Distinguishing The Human Embryo From Non-Embryonic Entities

The fourth Westchester Institute Scholars Forum returned to the issues raised by the second forum on Altered Nuclear Transfer.  There the forum examined the moral issues surrounding various proposals for genetically engineering human cells using nuclear transfer to produce non-embryonic human tissue from which pluripotent stem cells could be derived.  There was a general sense coming off of this earlier forum that, although important work had been done, there was nevertheless a lot more to discuss and clarify concerning the products of ANT.   Specifically, the question how we know what exactly we are producing needed more attention, because it must be absolutely clear that human embryonic life, no matter how defective or short lived is never brought into being using such a procedure.

Consequently, the fourth scholars forum was devoted to exploring whether and how human understanding can rationally distinguish embryonic human life at its earliest stages from naturally occurring biological aberrations (such as teratomas) or bio-engineered artifacts.  The dialogue unfolded by means of presentations by paired scholars (one with competence in philosophy and ethics, one with a scientific background) on the minimum set of philosophical and biological criteria that might serve to identify the crucial boundary between a whole human life and mere human organic tissue.

The question of how much organization is needed to establish the presence of a human substantial form continually cropped up, as well as how early must radical, structural disorganization occur in the process of cellular division to establish that no new organism came into being in the first place.  Because organisms are known and perceived through their operations which in turn presuppose bodily organs and organization, it would seem that the absence of any perceivable coordinated organization indicates that no soul is present.  However, it is possible for there to be material indispositions which prevent the manifestation of the soul's powers, even though they are there.  How is one to tell when this is and is not the case? 

One possible answer to this question was articulated at the conference.  It involved establishing the identity of something not simply by the absence of certain proper or necessary operations, such as coordinated cellular division, but by the positive presence of certain operations or qualities which identify the cell as manifestly and only pluripotent in nature.  This was the motivation behind the ANT-OAR proposal, which involved the attempted reprogramming of a cell so that it became, from the beginning, a recognizably pluripotent stem cell.  There was a interesting discussion which related this approach to a modified version of the cdx2 proposal of ANT.  All in all, there was a general sense that the forum had been extremely fruitful in further clarifying the issues under discussion.

In light of recent research further delineating the processes of mammalian embryonic development (e.g. Cdx-2 experiments), a majority of participants were in agreement that immediate, constructive, and ethically acceptable research (using animal models) can be pursued that will significantly clarify the prospects of obtaining cells with properties equivalent to those of human pluripotent stem cells.  This research will be within the parameters already outlined in earlier proposals for ANT/OAR research, specifically focusing on the functional deletion of developmental genes, such as cdx-2, in the somatic nucleus before nuclear transfer with the requirement that pluripotent stem cell specific transcription factors be adequately overexpressed in the somatic nucleus.  Additional interventions, such as direct overexpression of transcription factors, can be combined with cdx-2 deletions if indicated by the research.  Considering the scientific, medical, political, and social benefits to be gained by this research, the signers of the original ANT-OAR proposal continue to recommend that it be supported and pursued by all those desirous of the advances of human embryonic stem cell research without the creation or destruction of human embryos.