Human Life and Personhood

In this essay I will approach the issue of abortion from a perspective all-too-seldom taken; a factual one. I will shun all abstract moral constructs and unprovable propositions such as the existence of a soul in a fertilized ovum. I will address the question of when human life begins, in the sense of personhood rather than potential, with reference to the most current scientific data available on the subject.

A discussion of abortion based on biological facts is often unpleasant for the so-called pro-life forces. For instance, their loud accusations that abortion causes long-term physical and psychological damage to women have been ironically silenced by one of their staunchest advocates. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, after refusing to release his report on the effects of abortion for 2 years, was finally forced to make public his findings that the physical risks of abortion are very low and that he could find no evidence to support the existence of a "post-abortion syndrome."

A recent interview with noted embryologist Clifford Grobstein examined in detail the question of when the life of an individual begins. Grobstein has been studying prenatal development for the last 40 years and is currently professor emeritus of biological science and public policy at the University of California at San Diego.

Grobstein says we must first define what we mean by the term "individual." He argues that there are six components to full human individuality and that only o

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eflexive, originating at the level of the spinal cord, because there are no neurons in the brain rudiment at that stage. This rules out the possibility of internal experience or awareness. The traditional beginning of the fetal period is eight weeks, but the central nervous system remains extremely immature. He says that, "It seems clear that there is an early period of fetal development (from eight to 20 weeks) when you don't have to worry about a sentient being because there's no anatomical or physiological basis for it." In the pro-life movement's film "The Silent Scream," it is claimed that the ten-week-old fetus feels pain during an abortion because the thalamus, where pain is processed has neural connections, so it tries to move away from the instruments. Grobstein calls these claims products of overactive imaginations, since there is no evidence to support them. There are, in fact, absolutely no connections between the thalamus and the cortex at this stage. "If pain depends in any significant degree on brain function, it can't be present in the first 13 weeks and is extremely unlikely until a minimum of 20 weeks." Similarly, it is nonsensical to say that a fetus which doesn't even have enough of a brain to perceive p

Category: Medical - H