Remaking Ourselves
Shannon, Thomas A.
Feingold, and I believe Senator McCain as well, led by example. In the Feingold campaign it was obvious that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was as much his opponent as Congressman Neumann....
...Thomas A. Shannon REMAKING OURSELVES...
...even so, they too recognize the special status of the human tissue...
...They are not, I would argue, morally privileged by virtue of individuality or, a fortiori, by personhood...
...our common human nature in the blastomere is preindividual and prepersonal...
...My argument is that since the entity at this stage is not yet individualized, it lacks a critical, though not the only, criterion for personhood...
...While I do not agree with them, the group working on embryonic germ cells (the ones from aborted fetuses) claims that the use of these cells presents no particular problem because such cells could not be the precursor of a fetus...
...The capacity to isolate and cultivate them means that we have the potential ability to produce tissue in the laboratory for use in generating new tissue, in developing new organs for transplantations, as well as cells for use in gene therapy...
...But suffice it to say that the re-election of Russ Feingold gives this body of reform a chance to fight again...
...As chairman of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, McConnell has opposed any substantive campaign-finance reform legislation...
...Commonweal | 0 December4, 1998...
...Further, the cells can be divided artificially to form twins...
...True, they are morally privileged by being human cells, cells that manifest the human genome, and as such are an entity that represents the essence of human nature...
...It is research on our common human nature, and as such is morally justifiable...
...In short, it has a singular unity...
...His concept may help us get a handle on how to think about this entity in order to come to some ethical resolution about the development and use of embryonic stem cells...
...Let me suggest an idea developed by the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus, though, of course, he had no clue about stem cells...
...Every thoughtful citizen, irrespective of party affiliation, ought to join in giving the nation the full benefit of the re-election of Senators McCain and Feingold...
...However, prior to that time, these human cells are indifferent to becoming specific cells in this particular body...
...it therefore lacks a core feature of personhood...
...It is from these undifferientated cells that the entire embryo and fetus will develop...
...Patrick J. Lucey is a former governor of Wisconsin (1971-77) and former U.S...
...These cells are the precursors of the entire human body...
...This is so for two reasons: First, the cells in this entity have the capacity to become some (pluripotent) or any (totipotent) part of the body--and therefore the preimplantation embryo cannot be understood to be a single individual...
...I would argue that because the process of what biologists call differentiation has not yet occurred in the preimplantation embryo, such an entity is not individualized...
...And because these cells are our common human nature and nbt individualized human nature (the minimal definition of personhood), I argue that cells from this entity may be used in research to obtain and develop stem cells for use in transplantation or to develop specific human tissue or perhaps even organs...
...But what horses share in common is indifferent to whether we are referring to a singular horse or to all horses...
...Thomas A. Shannon is professor of religion and social ethics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts...
...While I agree totally, I see a distinction between those cells drawn from the human preimplantation embryo and those obtained from aborted fetuses...
...Common nature" is essentially the basis for the definition of any entity, what all horses share in common, for example...
...The changes in congressional leadership at this juncture make this an ideal time to press for this reform...
...In one line of research, the cells were taken from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst stage--one of the earliest stages in the development of the human preimplantation embryo...
...To my mind, this process is a biological analogy to Scotus's concept of the principle of individuation, the constricting of the common nature into an individual...
...So how might we think of such an entity...
...Scotus uses the term "common nature" to describe what is common to both the group and the individual...
...Essentially such research would be utilizing cells that in fact represent what is common to humans in the most basic sense...
...Was the election a referendum on campaign finance reform...
...Clearly those from whom such entities come must consent to this research, and the blastomeres must be handled with respect...
...Though there was a majority in each house for reform in the last Congress, the leadership did everything it could to deny those sentiments effective expression...
...We can think of the preimplantation embryo as our common human nature for two reasons...
...He apparently was convinced that if he could beat Feingold in Wisconsin the issue would go away...
...Individualization does not occur until after the process of restriction is completed, some two weeks after the process of fertilization...
...In both lines of research, the teams of scientists recognize that the cells do have moral status since they come from human embryonic material...
...This arguCommonweal 9 December4,1998 ment does not apply to the use of embryonic germ cells, that is, to cells obtained from aborted fetuses, because individuation has already happened...
...Probably not in the view of most voters...
...In the second line of research, using aborted fetuses, the cells were taken from their embryonic germ cells that would not develop into specific body parts but into new eggs or sperm...
...For Scotus, then, the common nature needs something else---an individualizing principle to constitute a particular horse...
...But ultimately, such research is not research on a human person...
...These particular blastocyst cells were taken from preimplantation embryos left over from fertility treatments that were not going to be used in further in vitro fertilization attempts...
...ambassador to Mexico (1977-79...
...For by definition, an individual is an entity that cannot be divided or, if it is, it becomes two halves neither of which can survive on its own...
...First, even though this entity is genetically distinct from its parents and even genetically unique, it is not yet individualized...
...Scotus's principle of individuation constricts, as he says, the form of this common nature into an individual, rendering this being unique, distinct from all others of the same species, and indivisible...
...Second, the cells of the preimplantation embryo can be separated without harm to the organism (for example, in preimplantation diagnosis, one or two cells can be removed and examined for genetic disease...
...The ethics of stem-cell research n the first week of November, articles in both Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science reported the stunning news that human stem cells have been isolated and cultivated...
...After the process is completed (normally after two weeks), the cells are committed to being specific cells in specific body parts...
...Herein lies the nub of the ethical issue: What is the moral status of the very early human embryo and of the tissue of an aborted fetus...
...One of the big barriers to campaign finance reform is that it has to be enacted by people who got elected under the existing corrupt system...
...This is the biological beginning of true (though not full) individuality and, I would argue, marks a critical ethical line...
...it is incapable of being divided into two wholes...
...The term is part of his larger theory of knowledge and individualization...
...This is the second reason why the preimplantation embryo can be understood in terms of Scotus's "common nature...
...Finally, each of the cells has the potential to be another whole individual...
...Since not all have the courage of a Russ Feingold they need to be pushed in the right direction...
Vol. 125 • December 1998 • No. 21
