Preconceptionally
Immaculate conceivings
January 18, 2009 22 comments
University College London announces:
The first baby tested preconceptionally for a genetic form of breast cancer (BRCA1) has been born.
William Saletan at Slate:
[L]et’s take a closer look at the announcement, starting with the test “before conception.” This baby was tested as an embryo in a dish. She was one of 11 such embryos made by injecting drugs in the mother to stimulate production of excess eggs, which were then fertilized with the father’s sperm. Six of the embryos had the gene for breast cancer. Three more had “other abnormalities.” All nine were “discarded.” The other two were implanted, and one became this baby.
In sum, at least six human embryos were made and then thrown away because they failed a test. We now call such tests “preconception.” This is the next step in our gradual devaluation of embryos. First, we said IVF embryos weren’t pregnancies. That’s technically correct: Pregnancy begins when the embryo implants in the womb. Then we called early embryos “pre-embryos” so we could dismantle them to get stem cells. That was technically incorrect, but we did it because it made us feel better. Now we’re adjusting the word conception. Henceforth, testing of IVF embryos to decide which will live or die is preconception. Don’t fret about the six eggs we fertilized, rejected, and flushed in selecting this baby. They were never really conceived. In fact, they weren’t embryos. According to Serhal, each was just “an affected cluster of cells.”
Saletan’s outrage at the apparent “adjusting of the word conception” here seems to depend on the assumption (natural enough) that “conception” occurs at fertilization. However (I Am Not a Fertility Scientist), it seems as though he is somewhat late to the party in complaining about the “adjusting” of the word, since the medical meaning of “conception” changed from what he and I find intuitive more than 40 years ago. Since the mid-1960s, “conception” has been defined as the implantation of the blastocyst rather than its initial formation. Obviously the UCL team is using “conception” in that sense, so there is no absurdity in their story of preconception embryo testing.
Was the change in the meaning of “conception” that occurred in the 1960s itself argumentative, politically as well as scientifically motivated? It looks that way. ((Wikipedia has a Dr Bent Boving saying in 1959: “the social advantage of being considered to prevent conception rather than to destroy an established pregnancy could depend on something so simple as a prudent habit of speech” — which makes my Unspeak antennae vibrate; but I’d like to know more.)) Is it important to keep tabs on such linguistic changes? Definitely. (I like what Saletan subsequently does with the word “inflicting”.) On the other hand, Saletan is going a bit far to claim that anyone is trying to Unspeak the very existence of embryos, which he does by the sleight of hand of linking to a Daily Mail story: the original UCL press release clearly says “embryos”.
And is he perhaps a little too quick to turn this into a scare story about those crazy eugenicist scientists riding roughshod over “conscience” and “the truth”?
I suppose that it would be incorrect to refer to the period between fertilization and ‘conception’ as the ‘pregnant pause.’
Seriously, Saletan is wrong to talk about ‘our gradual devaluation of embryos’. I don’t think anyone, barring a few religious nuts, has ever valued embryos per se.
‘Seriously, Saletan is wrong to talk about ‘our gradual devaluation of embryos’. I don’t think anyone, barring a few religious nuts, has ever valued embryos per se.’
Do you think the embryo you came from was valuable?
I found Steven’s post interesting, but thought the last paragraph was rather irrelevant to what preceded it and used hyperbole to ridicule a viewpoint. Don’t you think there is something unsettling about this?
‘Don’t you think there is something unsettling about this?’…
… meaning the selection of embryos for desired characteristics.
Well, the point of my final paragraph is that I think Saletan’s own hyperbole is unhelpful.
Saletan’s ‘we’ is meant to spread the supposed guilt: ‘We now call such tests “preconception.”’ I wonder what supposed abominations ‘we’ will do next.
For me this issue is the most difficult area as a leftist. I am pleased that Steven wrote in Unspeak criticising the phrase ‘pro-choice’, but at the same time, I think that ‘pro-life’ is a completely accurate description of being opposed to abortion. Still, at least he demonstrated that there were two sides to the abortion debate which many on the left try to ignore. It is something I find difficult to understand because I have yet to read a convincing reason why an embryo should not be considered a human being.
What makes the discourse (and this website seems more about discourse than ideology) surrounding the status of embryos difficult to write about is that so many opponents of abortion are stupid, insincere, unpleasant or a combination of all three. This is most evident from the use of the phrase ‘abortion and homosexuality’ by Americans who are ‘anti-abortion’. It seems to equate the right of two adults to live in a consenting relationship with (as I would see it) the murder of unborn children. As for Tony Blair, I find his position utterly creepy. If I understand him correctly, he thinks abortion is murder, but he still votes for lenient abortion laws?
The issue of selecting embryos is slightly different, but I still think it is completely wrong. It did seem to me that by ridiculing Saletan’s words (and I am no fan of Saletan or anyone on Slate) he is implying that the scientists are ethical. Whilst I myself struggled with Saletan’s appalling writing (and what his paragraph about ‘truth’ and ‘conscience’ meant) I think that Steven’s mention of ‘crazy eugenicist scientists’ parodied the use of ‘eugenicist’ when in fact it is a fairly accurate description of their work.
It’s obvious why certain people lump abortion and homosexuality together: they oppose non-reproductive sex. In the minds of people for whom such sex is a sin, it makes total sense to equate the two.
I have always found the simplest case for legal abortion to be the argument for limited government. A government that compels women to have children whether they like it or not is no government that I want to live under. The moral questions of abortion may be philosophically interesting to some. For me, the question of law is paramount: should the government have the power to make such laws? In China, the government can compel women not to have children. Who wants to give the government the power to decide one way or the other?
Jeff, what do you mean “such laws”? Laws that regulate sexual activity and childbirth? The single-child policy in China has been controversial and is certainly intrusive, but I would hardly want to revoke it and though I don’t live under that law, I appreciate the fact that many, many people do (fewer than if they had not enacted those laws). If you say that a limited government should have no interest in individual bodies, then you kiss the field of public health goodbye; if the government has some interest in individual bodies, then there is a discussion to be had about when and why the government should have an interest in particular parts of individual bodies and where the limits should be. This would not necessarily exclude reproduction. Or homosexuality, for that matter. I know where I stand on these issues – right alongside you, I would suspect – but I am not helped by a general appeal to “limited government”, an appeal that would, like a homosexual, bite me on the ass every time I try to advocate for public health policies that strain whatever limits are implied by “limited government.”
But, Jeff, you sidetracked me. I just wanted to throw out a book reference here to anybody interested in this topic – “Born and Made” by Sarah Franklin and Celia Roberts; it’s really very readable and nicely done and provides something of an answer to Steve’s entirely appropriate final question.
‘I have always found the simplest case for legal abortion to be the argument for limited government. A government that compels women to have children whether they like it or not is no government that I want to live under.’
But to me this misses the point. Do you acknowledge that an embryo is a developing human being? If so is killing it murder, and if not, why not? Is a child not-human five minutes before it is born, but human five minutes afterwards? You write ‘have children’, which is a rather strange adjective. Perhaps you should say ‘give birth to children’ or ‘not kill children’.
‘In China, the government can compel women not to have children. Who wants to give the government the power to decide one way or the other? ‘
I would. If you believe (as I do) that the government has a duty to preserve human life, then for me that includes children who have not been born. If you share my view that the government does have a duty to protect life, then you would have to define why an unborn baby is not a human being. Apropos of China, don’t you think it says something that a country that is so negligent towards human life wants to cheapen it by its abortion policies?
‘but I am not helped by a general appeal to “limited government”, an appeal that would, like a homosexual, bite me on the ass every time I try to advocate for public health policies that strain whatever limits are implied by “limited government.”’
So homosexuals lurk underwater waiting to bite the asses of people who advocate public health insurance? Sure you aren’t thinking of kappas?
Nope. Not just underwater. On dry land too!
Is every sperm sacred?
A fair question. The answer is “no”. Why not? Because there are biological, ethical and political distinctions that can be drawn between a bundle of cells that may or may not be destined to live a life as a human and the human derived from a largely similar bundle of cells. It is not an easy distinction to make, nor one unburdened by the weight of responsibility, unshadowed by ethical ambiguity, but it is a distinction that occurs in IVF and other assisted reproductive techniques, including preimplanation genetic diagnosis, and I would suspect that you do not call every couple who have used assisted reproductive technique murderers. Do you know how many embryos were sacrificed – let’s use that word – to develop the technology that permits IVF and assisted reproductive techniques, and how many embryos are produced by every cyle of IVF, by every form of assisted reproductive technology, particularly compared to the number of children who are eventually born? I suspect you do not know – because the number is so vastly, unmeasurably high. It’s possible, for a moment, to mourn these numbers, but it’s also possible to turn away from them and to accept their loss as something other than “murder”.
Depends on the child, really.
‘Is every sperm sacred?’
No, and I never used the word ‘sacred’. Whilst I am a Christian, I do not oppose euthanasia, and I acknowledge that the debate of life before birth is very complex. For instance, whilst the Roman Catholic opinion (that the soul enters the body at conception) has an attractive clarity, it is a fact that the majority of embryos at this stage die before birth.
Also there is little correlation between abortion rate and religious observance. The Netherlands has a far lower abortion rate than the USA. So I do not see this as a theological issue. Still, as a political issue I think it says a lot about how human life is valued in a society. The USSR was the first state to legalise abortion, which I think says a lot.
‘If so is killing it murder, and if not, why not?
A fair question. The answer is “no”. Why not? Because there are biological, ethical and political distinctions that can be drawn between a bundle of cells that may or may not be destined to live a life as a human and the human derived from a largely similar bundle of cells.’
Aren’t political distinctions always relative? As for ‘biological’ I don’t actually see that the differences are that great. If the embryo is a stage in our existence, then surely for that alone it should be immoral to destroy it?
As for IVF, this is something I do not know about, but if I understand correctly these people are trying to have children and if they are unsuccessful at least they are trying to perpetuate the gift of life. Again, I don’t claim any metaphysical knowledge of the ‘soul’ and would not ask a secularist to respect my opinion on something that cannot be proven: but surely we could both agree that losing embryos involuntarily is different from purposefully destroying them?
What exactly does it say?
You’re right upthread to insist that the story really is about eugenics. Nonetheless I think Saletan’s tone is open to criticism.
The USSR was the first state to legalise abortion, which I think says a lot.
‘What exactly does it say?’
The USSR eventually killed between 20 to 40 million people and created a nightmarish society. When the state began to give people a legal right to kill embryos, far from limiting government authority, its cheapening of human life was in keeping with the state arrogating the right to take people’s lives.
‘You’re right upthread to insist that the story really is about eugenics.’
That demonstrates why those comments saying that we are a bunch of conforming self-righteous gits ( http://unspeak.net/speak/) were very unfair, especially as the people didn’t even voice a disagreement themselves. Opposing abortion is not a normal liberal-left position, but I think I’ve been treated very fairly here.
I’d say that Unspeak.net is more about language and its abuses than about putting forward any ideology or reaching a political consensus.
‘Nonetheless I think Saletan’s tone is open to criticism.’
Entirely in agreement there.
Still, as a political issue I think it says a lot about how human life is valued in a society.
I agree that it probably does say something (not sure about ‘a lot’) about how human life is valued in a society. However, it’s not obvious to me that that valuing ‘human life’ (in an abstract) more is necessarily a good thing. If you think it is, you need to explain why. As a political issue, that is.
Now, beyond the politics – it appears that the objective to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” has already been achieved. Total success. One should know where to stop.
Gregor wrote:
First, ‘have children’ is indeed a very ‘strange adjective’, one that I am entirely unfamiliar with.
More seriously, the pregnancy timeclock guessing game is a losing proposition for making law. Is a fœtus a ‘more developed human being’ on the first day of the third trimester than on the last day of the second trimester? Of course not.
Law works best when it can find a clear bright line. This is not always possible, but pregnancy does present a clear bright line along which good laws can be made: that of childbirth. The difference between being inside or outside a mother’s body is clear. Do I think fœtuses should be aborted in the ninth month of pregnancy? No. A clever rhetorician on the pro-choice side can probably conjure a strange set of circumstances that would make that specific, unusual case of late abortion seem less dreadful, but it would never be a desirable thing to do. The problem with the timeclock game is that there is no way to standardize in law the day (or week or month) when an abortion becomes a different category of action than it was the day before. As a matter of law-making, childbirth is the only meaningful very sharp distinction to draw.
As I recall, Peter Singer does not think that birth is a morally significant dividing line (in Practical Ethics).
Wow! And here I thought the pressure on kids to get into a top-tier pre-school was extreme.
Way, way back I researched an article on abortion for my uni newspaper and the conclusion I came to was that since human death was (is) legally determined by the absence of electrical impulses in the brain (more or less) then logically the time a foetus becomes human is when “viable” electrical impulses can be detected in a foetus’s brain. I don’t exactly remember when that tends to happen but I think it is quite late; perhaps it’s as late as 6 months that the neurones necessary for a human life are present in the foetal brain. In any case I concluded that abortion before that happens was not murder and got out of the rest of the argument by saying I didn’t like abortion anyway – not for myself, anyway – but it wasn’t my decision. Anyway, I was very young and all of this may be, probably is, very shallow.
There is, however a lot of nonsense and sentiment about it all – souls and heads of pins etc. – which George Barker (whom I read for English at about the same time) put fairly ruthlessly in his “True Confessions of George Barker, Book I:
Well, the poem looked perfect in the preview. Used all my best html and everything. Maybe Steven can resurrect it….?
Is that better?
Tarvery mootch. Very like.
Meatwork,
I have come to realise that while we are often far too forgiving of the shallowness of youth, the alternative is much, much worse. Barker’s poem shows as much.