Human Enough to Protect? Zygotes & Blastocysts.(Brief Article)

As debates over stem cell research and cloning roil on, proponents of scientific research ask their opponents: "But why do you want to protect human zygotes, blastocysts and embryos from manipulation or loss? How can you care about the inviolability of these `clumps' of developing cells, `no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence'?"

But why is size an issue when there is so much inherent developmental capacity? Surely size in a world of quarks, quantum events, and neutrinos is relative. In the microrealm a zygote and blastocyst can appear pretty gigantic. Scientists who describe the big bang claim that at its beginning the whole universe was many times smaller than a single fertilized human cell.

Human zygotes also have a long lineage. They are the incredibly developed endpoints of millions of years of evolutionary change. The active genetic information in the microscopic initial stages of human life is as dynamically potent as a nuclear explosion. Replaying the movie of every human life brings you back to these beginning cells with their specific human characteristics. After all, it is this very capacity for potential that makes scientists want to manufacture, dissect, and destroy embryos in their research.

When George W. Bush announced his ban on new embryonic stem cell research, he used the image of a snowflake to call attention to the valuable uniqueness of each nascent life. But this image doesn't go far enough. Each zygote's dynamic uniqueness makes it a natural wonder of the world, far surpassing Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon.

As evolutionary biology has progressed in understanding the developing saga of human life, it has also honed our awareness of our common genetic heritage. We share an identity as one species. Each instance in time of embryonic human life is related to all the rest of the human family, and not just to its progenitors. The human species lives from generation to generation as an interdependent unitary whole. How misguided it is to think it acceptable to divide humankind into bits and pieces of disposable property.

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