Shoggoths!

Earlier I blogged about a new proposal to get around the impasse in the stem cell debate.

THIS PROPOSAL, AND ANOTHER, WAS DESCRIBED IN AN ARTICLE IN SLATE.

Now I want to talk about the second proposal. It is this: We create human shoggoths.

The idea is that you disable one of the genes that controls organic development so that what develops isn’t an embryo but something that, if left to its own devices, will become a tumorous mass with jumbled up body parts. You then turn the gene back on in time to let it generate stem cells for harvesting.

According to the author for Slate:

It sounds perfect, until you look up at the projection screen.
Hurlbut has modeled his recipe on "aberrant products of fertilization"
and teratomas, which, he explains, are "germ cell tumors that generate
all three primary embryonic germ layers as well as more advanced cells
and tissues, including partial limb and organ primordia." Limb and
organ primordia? Yep, that’s what’s on the screen: a ball of tissue,
grown inside some poor creature, full of bits and pieces of what would
have been a body. Another slide shows an X-ray image of somebody’s
back. To the left of the spine, you can see a cluster of white spots
that look like teeth. And that’s exactly what they are, all dressed up
and no place to chomp. You wanted disorganized development? You got it.

This does not sound perfect to me at all, and I don’t need to look at a screen to get creeped out by it. Several problems immediately occur to me:

• First there is the problem of when you disable the gene. If you disable it after the germ cells have come together and formed a zygote then the act would amount to an assault on a living human being that is intended to cause gross bodily deformities. To avoid assaulting a human being you would have to turn off the gene in one of the germ cells before they come together and form a human zygote (a one-celled human being).
• If you only deactivate a single gene, have you really kept something from being a person? If it has a full human genetic code (I’m not talking about something with only one or two chromosomes instead of the usual forty-six) and you’ve simply turned off a gene (many of our genes are already inactive) does that really deprive the creature of humanity?
• Assuming that you did deactivate the gene in one of the germ cells, it seems to me that one could argue that what you have done in this case is genetically engineered a child that has a grave medical condition that will result in his life being very short. True, he will not have the bodily shape of a normal child, but then having a particular body shape is not needed to be a child. People do have bodily deformities and yet remain human beings. A human can be even a single cell, as with a zygote. True also, the child will not live long, but having a long life also is not needed to count as a human. If the creature has an otherwise intact human genetic code, I am not comfortable saying that if you switch off a single gene that you have deprived the creature of humanity.
• Even assuming that shutting off the gene deprived the creature of
  humanity, if you then switch on the gene so that the creature can make
  suitable stem cells for you, have you–by restoring its genetic code to
  normal functioning–are you then creating in it the property of being human? It now has a fully functional human genetic code. You’ve just severely interfered with its development such that it has a mangled body and a short life.
• Having said that, let me offer a counter argument: Scientifically, a human being is a living human organism. If something isn’t an organism then, even if it is made of human cells, it isn’t a human being (as is the case when someone has an organ removed; the organ isn’t a human being). If, therefore, you really can do something to the germ cells that prevents the development of an organism then what you are dealing with is not a human being and could be harvested without it being murder.
• The question is thus: If you create a zygote that cannot develop normally, have you created an organism with a grave genetic defect (in which case it’s a human with a grave genetic defect) or have you created something that’s not an organism (and thus not a human)?
• The problem is figuring out whether something constitutes an organism or not. In some cases (as with a normal embryo) it clearly is. In other cases (like a single ovum) it is clearly not. But when you start to get outside the clear categories that God set up, things get very blurry very fast. Body shape and length of life are not necessary conditions for something being an organism and we must at least proceed with caution here.
• In the absence of body shape and length of life being necessary conditions for the presence of humanity, we must assume that humanity remains present as a failsafe against taking innocent human life. This failsafe mentality in favor of life is mandatory. You have to be able to prove that humanity is not present. "Human until proven otherwise" is the rule when you’re monkeying in these waters.

It therefore seems to me that we have to proceed with caution and can’t go rushing off willy-nilly to create human shoggoths.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin