Memo To Joint Health Care Committee on the
Legal Status of the Human Embryo in
Massachusetts
Date:
To:
From:
October 30, 2001
Joint Committee on Health Care, Massachusetts General Court
Daniel Avila, Associate Director of Policy & Research, Massachusetts Catholic Conference
Re:
Legal Aspects of Question Regarding Status of Human Zygotes and Embryos in
Massachusetts
This memorandum reviews relevant Massachusetts law regarding the legal status of
human zygotes and embryos, taking into account the questions raised and assertions
made by participants in the recent Special Oversight Hearings of the Joint Committee
on Health Care Regarding Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning (Sept. 14 & Oct.
18, 2001).
The Introduction to the Joint Committee’s Briefing Packet states that "[c]urrent law in
Massachusetts does not restrict experimentation on human embryos", citing M.G.L.
Chap. 112, § 12J. The fetal research statute is not the only relevant provision however.
The legal inquiry must also consider Massachusetts laws governing homicide,
wrongful death, wrongful injury and abortion, along with interpretive court decisions,
in as much as these provisions and cases concern the identification and protection of
human life.
This memorandum will not supply an exhaustive account of all possibly applicable
rules, but will highlight those laws and cases particularly relevant to destructive
research on human zygotes and embryos. In light of current law, the General Court
should presume that humans at the zygotic or embryonic stage and existing outside
the womb qualify for legal protection. The burden should rest on the shoulders of
those who favor destructive experimentation to prove that a "human life" or "human
being" is not at risk.
Who Does the Homicide Code Protect?
Many of the hearing participants debated the terms by which to refer to human
zygotes and embryos. This exercise is more than a free-floating philosophical debate
over terminology and meaning; it touches on a crucial question that the Massachusetts
jurisprudence on homicide has addressed, albeit incompletely and not always
consistently. That is, who is protected by the homicide code? The law itself must
frame the inquiry.
According to an early Massachusetts case, "Homicide, of which murder is the highest
and most criminal species, is of various degrees, according to the circumstances. The
term, in its largest sense, is generic, embracing every mode by which the life of a man
is taken by the act of another."[1]
The Massachusetts General Court and the state courts define murder as "The killing of
a human being, with malice aforethought."[2] Similarly, "[t]he crime of manslaughter
imports the taking of human life by an act not justified in law, but without malice
aforethought which is necessary to constitute murder."[3] Although the statute
governing vehicular homicide refers to conduct that "causes the death of another
person", the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that "[i]n keeping with
approved usage, and giving terms their ordinary meaning, the word ‘person’ is
synonymous with the term ‘human being’".[4]
As interesting as may be the philosophical debate witnessed during the Oversight
Hearings over theoretical distinctions between the terms "person", "human life", or
"human being", Massachusetts jurisprudence has settled the legal question in the
Commonwealth. All of these terms, when used in Massachusetts statutes or common
law rulings pertaining to homicide, are to refer to the same subject. The use of any one
term is not to be construed as an attempt to make what the Supreme Judicial Court has
considered "arbitrary" distinctions between persons, human lives, and human
beings.[5] Thus, for example, "[b]y the use [in a homicide statute] of the term[]
‘person’ .. . . the Legislature has given no hint of a contemplated distinction between
pre-born and born human beings."[6]
Does a newly fertilized zygote and embryo, particularly ex utero, qualify as a subject
of homicide protection? The General Court has already determined as a matter of
public policy in the abortion context that a human child in utero is "the individual
human life in existence and developing from fertilization until birth."[7] In this
respect, Massachusetts joins twenty nine other states officially recognizing by statute,
state convention resolution, or appellate court ruling that "fertilization" or
"conception" initiates the life of a human being.[8] This legal and public consensus
carries far greater weight in identifying whom should fall within the homicide code’s
protection than any private religious or philosophical opinions to the contrary.[9]
Because the General Court recognizes that the entity in existence and developing from
fertilization is a "human life", logic and fairness dictate the inclusion of this human
life within the homicide law’s protective scope. Indeed, at least eleven states expressly
treat the destruction of human embryos outside the abortion context as homicide from
the moment of conception.[10]
Obviously, the United States Supreme Court has removed from the state homicide
code’s protection certain abortions that destroy human beings in utero.[11] As a result,
a mother’s decision that is carried out by a physician to abort a pregnancy, thereby
taking an unborn child’s life,[12] must be classified as lawful homicide in
Massachusetts.[13]
Not surprisingly, the federal abortion jurisprudence has created some confusion in
Massachusetts about whether and when the state may act to protect prenatal human
beings both in and outside the womb in the nonabortion context. In 1981, the Supreme
Judicial Court opined that "[a]t least prior to viability, we are constrained by Roe v.
Wade . . . from imputing to the State any interest in protecting the fetus as a ‘third
party.’"[14] However, in 1989, the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of
states to determine as a matter of state policy "when life begins in a nonabortion
context, a traditional state prerogative."[15]
In a series of rulings, the Supreme Judicial Court has extended such protection to
prenatal human beings from conception forward. In the already mentioned case of
Commonwealth v. Cass, the Court determined that for common law purposes, "[a]n
offspring of human parents cannot reasonably be considered to be other than a human
being, and therefore a person, first within, and then in normal course outside, the
womb."[16] Where "[m]edical science . . . may provide competent proof as to whether
the fetus was alive at the time of the defendant’s conduct",[17] the "infliction of
prenatal injuries resulting in the death of a viable fetus, before or after it is born, is
homicide."[18] The Court has yet to address a case under the homicide laws involving
the killing of a nonviable human being. However, the Court has considered the
question of civil liability in such cases brought under tort law. In Torigian v.
Watertown News Co., Inc., the Court allowed for wrongful death recovery for uterine
injuries to a nonviable child when the child subsequently is born live but yet is unable
to survive because of prematurity.[19] Thus, a nonviable human being must be
counted as a "person" as that term is used in the wrongful death statute.[20] In Payton
v. Abbott Labs, the Court ruled that "[i]f the tortious conduct and the legal causation
of the harm can be satisfactorily established, there may be recovery for any injury at
any time after conception."[21] While in Thilbert v. Milka the Court denied recovery
for prenatal injuries to a nonviable child delivered stillborn, its explanation of the
grounds for denial inform the debate over the legal status of nonviable humans at the
zgyotic or embryonic stages. According to the Court, the wrongful death statute was
designed to provide a separate cause of action only to persons capable of maintaining
a "separate" or "independent existence".[22] Thus, "[t]here is recovery where a child
is born alive, regardless of viability at the time of injury, because a ‘live person was
presently suffering from the injuries’".[23]
In light of this jurisprudence, important principles should apply to the determination
of the legal status in Massachusetts of embryos ex utero. First, the concept of "person"
must be broadly construed, embracing any "human being" or "human life". Second,
living human beings capable of an "independent existence", regardless of ability to
survive to term or maturity, are subjects of rights in Massachusetts. While the courts
have not yet dealt with a homicide case involving a nonviable human being living an
independent existence ex utero at the time of a deliberately caused fatal injury,
Massachusetts precedent suggests that the death should be treated as homicide.[24]
Third, science must play a role in determining whether the human subject was "alive"
or a "living being" at the time of the injury.
Yet, in a 2000 decision ignoring this jurisprudence, the Court held that embryos
produced by in vitro fertilization could not be implanted in the mother’s womb over
the objection of the father. In A.Z. v. B.Z., the Court used "the term ‘preembryo’ to
refer to the four-to-eight cell stage of a developing fertilized egg", taking its lead from
an ethics opinion of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.[25] According
to the Court, in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process "[i]f [ex uterine] fertilization
between any of the eggs and sperm occurs, preembryos are formed that are held in a
petri dish for one or two days until a decision can be made as to which preembryos
will be used immediately and which will be frozen by the clinic for later use. . . . By
using one or more of these preembryos, it is possible that the wife could conceive [by
implanting them]."[26] Any attempt by the mother to implant the "preembryos"
without the father’s consent would constitute, in the Court’s estimation, "forced
procreation" compelling "one donor to become a parent against his . . . will."[27]
The Court thus treated "fertilization" and "conception" as dichotomous events. This
dichotomy infers that the human entity created by ex uterine fertilization cannot move
beyond a newly coined stage of being a "preembryo" (a coinage new to Massachusetts
jurisprudence but largely abandoned elsewhere)[28] until the entity’s physical status
of independent existence outside the womb ends by the conception of pregnancy, or
implantation.[29] But this sets up a conundrum when matched against the foregoing
precedent. Earlier cases dealing with nonviable human life required a showing of
independent existence ex utero by a living being before legal protection attaches. Yet,
the Court in A.Z. neglected to consider the newly fertilized human entity as an
independently protectable human subject precisely because and so long as the entity is
forced, by the failure of one parent to consent to implantation, to continue a separate
existence outside the womb. As a result and without explanation, the Court failed to
inquire as to whether, for purposes of Massachusetts common law, the newly created
entities at stake in A.Z. were living human beings.
In sum, the current status of Massachusetts law, with one troubling exception, favors
the view that human life in existence outside the womb is subject to the homicide and
wrongful death law’s protections, regardless of whether the human life is sufficiently
mature as to survive to infancy. The independent existence of a living human being,
not viability, is a critical legal requisite.
Humans at the zygotic and embryonic stages of development qualify for legal
protection; the burden to disprove their qualification should rest on the
shoulders of those supporting destructive experimentation.
Typically in life or death cases the party seeking authority to act in a manner that
possibly involves the loss of human life bears the burden of proving that life is not
threatened. As long as some credible evidence gives rise to the possibility that human
life is at stake, then a presumption favoring that view should apply. Proof of absolute
certainty or complete consensus among scientists or in society should not be
demanded of those who argue that life will be threatened by embryonic stem cell
research. Rather, if any evidence is to be "irrefutable", to use the term employed by
Dr. Michael West during the October 19th hearing before this Joint Committee, it
should be the evidence offered to prove that human life is not at stake. As long as the
claim that from fertilization a living human being exists has some supporting evidence
and is not completely refuted by countering evidence then, even in the midst of a
legislator’s doubt as to the truth of either claim, the presumption in favor of life
should prevail and experimentation on human embryos should be restricted. Even in
the face of those who insist that according to their personal beliefs life is not at stake
in embryonic stem cell research, a legislator can reasonably act contrary to that view.
This common sense approach is based on the uncontroversial premise that the
mistaken loss of life is a much greater evil to be avoided than the mistaken protection
of non-life.
While it is not this memorandum’s intent to rehearse all of the scientific testimony
submitted to the Joint Committee, it may be helpful to examine what areas of
disagreement should be considered relevant and to identify the general nature of the
disagreements and quality of the evidence. Have the opponents of embryo-destroying
research produced credible evidence to support their claim that human life is at stake?
Have the research supporters refuted such evidence by completely disproving the
possibility of human existence before 14 days?
These questions cannot be resolved until there is at least some agreement about what
either side must prove or disprove. Here the law in Massachusetts serves as a guide. In
homicide and wrongful death cases involving the loss of prenatal human life, the state
courts have recognized the need for the prosecution to present scientific evidence
indicating that a "living being" was alive at the time the destructive act took place and
existed independently outside the womb before dying. The state courts have not
required evidence of long-term viability, and of the victim’s capacity to think, feel, or
interact.[30] Thus assertions about these issues should be considered irrelevant to the
question of an embryo’s legal status in Massachusetts.[31]
So, in general, what are the relevant claims and counterclaims? Proponents of the
view that fertilization marks the beginning of a human being’s life point to the unique
genetic constitution and the integrated organic functioning of the new entity,
biological qualities that exist from fertilization. Opponents of this view refer to the
phenomena of twinning and to the related ability of zygotic and embryonic cells to
shift their development from one function to another function within an embryo, and
even to develop into separate embryos, a feature called "totipotency". The opponents
thus claim that until an embryo’s cells become biologically fixed to one destiny, and
until the possibility passes that one embryo will split into two or more separate
embryos, the entity cannot be identified as an individual human being.
Packed into this dispute are contrasting philosophical definitions of "being" and
"individual" and differing moral interpretations of the biological data. It is beyond the
objective of this memorandum to explore in any depth the nature of this dispute or to
provide extensive biological and philosophical documentation. However, framing in
only the most general of terms the case for identifying the entity created at
fertilization as an individual human being can serve two purposes. It demonstrates the
reasonableness of the case for using fertilization rather than some other point to mark
a human being’s beginning and it provides a map indicating the questions and relevant
evidence the legislature could pursue in an even more in-depth inquiry to substantiate
(or disprove) this argument.[32]
The argument responding to the "twinning" and "totipotency" objections proceeds as
follows:
1. The organic integration and biological growth of the zygote and embryo
demonstrate a unity such as to constitute "one" life in being that is separate
from other lives and other objects in being. This is the classic understanding of
"individual", a reasonable conceptualization that nonetheless differs from the
alternative claim raised by supporters of embryo research that an individual is
an entity that is physically indivisible, i.e., lacks the potential for dividing into
two or more individuals. This alternative and more controversial claim fails to
account for the occurrence of natural cloning (see below) and the apparent
possibility of experimental cloning using adult stem cells. The fact that cells
from an adult human being might be used to clone another human being cannot
mean that the original adult fails to exist as an individual.
2. Any switching in functions within the embryo on the part of any one stem cell
occurs only as a result of injury or death to other cells, or as a result of
experimental intervention, and such switching is not usual or ordinarily in the
course of the embryo’s development. When occurring naturally, such shifting
works to maintain the embryo’s separate, distinct, and unified existence. To
talk as if every cell is naturally and always "undetermined" in every embryo
overstates the biological evidence.
3. Monozygotic twinning, where two or more individuals emerge from one
embryo, can be explained in ways that are consistent with the observed
biological phenomenon and that still permits the original embryo, as a
philosophical matter, to be identified before twinning as an individual human
being. First, the being in existence at fertilization could continue to exist
through and after the point of twinning, and by a process of natural cloning, a
new being comes into existence. Second, the being in existence from
fertilization dies in the process of twinning and two or more new, separate, and
internally unified individuals come into existence.[33]
4. Monozygotic twinning is extremely rare. The chances that any one particular
zygote or embryo is actually living an indeterminate, non-individuated
existence would be too small a basis on which to proceed with any confidence
that experimentation in any one case will not destroy an individual living being.
An issue of such importance deserves an extended examination within which experts
from both sides would have a chance to document their respective cases. The hearings
before this Joint Committee mark an excellent beginning. Both sides were given a fair
opportunity to present their views. However, leading authorities from the disciplines
of embryology, cellular and microbiology, and genetics as well as philosophy would
provide this Committee with an even broader and deeper base of relevant scientific
information. A public policy issue of such fundamental import deserves the most
careful and far-reaching examination possible. The Massachusetts Catholic
Conference, as always, stands ready to help the Committee find experts, collect data,
and whatever else it takes to ensure a fair and full inquiry into the question of whether
to permit embryo-destroying stem cell research.
NOTES
[1] Commonwealth v. Webster, 59 Mass. 295, 303 (1850).
[2] Emphasis added. See M.G.L. Chap. 277, § 39 (determining the construction of words used in
indictments); Commonwealth v. Campbell, 375 Mass. 308, 312 (1978) (incorporating identical
definition); Commonwealth v. McCauley, 355 Mass. 554, 559 (1969) (same); Commonwealth v.
Gricus, 317 Mass. 403, 411 (1944) (observing that when a felony "causes the death of a human
being, the killing is with malice aforethought and is murder"). See also Porter v. Sorell, 280
Mass. 457, 461 (1932) construing the Massachusetts wrongful death statutes as civil measures
intended "to punish those who through [noncriminal] negligence cause the death of a human
being").
[3] Commonwealth v. Demboski, 283 Mass. 315, 322 (1933) (emphasis added). See also
Commonwealth v. Simpson, 434 Mass. 570, 590 (2001) (defining involuntary manslaughter as
"an unlawful homicide (1) where wanton and reckless conduct causes death, or (2) where an
unintentional killing ‘result[s] from a battery not amounting to a felony which the defendant
knew or should have known endangered human life’") (citation omitted) & Commonwealth v.
Jackson, 432 Mass. 82, 89 (2000) (referring to felonious conduct "inherently dangerous to
human life").
[4] Commonwealth v. Cass, 392 Mass. 799, 801 (1984) (construing M.G.L. Chap. 90, § 24G(a)).
[5] Cass, 392 Mass. at 801. See also Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 404 Mass. 378, 398 (1988)
(Abrams, J., concurring) ("[The defendant] argues that Massachusetts law does not recognize a
fetus as a human being for purposes of construing the common law crime of murder. This
argument is clearly incorrect in light of Cass, which address not only the vehicular homicide
statute but also the common law.").
[6] Id.
[7] M.G.L. Chap. 112, § 12K (providing definitions applicable to abortion statute).
[8] The individual state statutes, resolutions and court opinions are listed in Daniel Avila, The
Present Standing of the Human Embryo in U.S. Law, 1 Nat’l Catholic Bioethics Q. 203, 213 n.55
(2001).
[9] Such opinions were presented to the Joint Committee on Health Care, claiming for example
that the newly conceived human exists as water up to forty days from conception (from the oral
testimony of a woman describing her religious views) or is only an "unenabled, unindividuated
‘epidosembryo’, . . . a beneficence to the common weal" solely as an extrinsic source for stem
cells, and not as an intrinsically valuable human being. Louis Guenin, Testimony before the
United States Congress, page 59, in Committee Briefing Packet.
[10] The states include Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Utah. See citations in Clarke Forsythe, Human Cloning
and the Constitution, 32 Valparaiso U. L. Rev. 469, 499 n.136 (1998).
[11] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973); Moe v. Secretary of Admin. & Finance, 382 Mass. 629,
647 (1981).
[12] Most abortions are performed at least 8 weeks after fertilization, a stage of human
development that very few abortion rights leaders deny is human life. While a majority of the
United States Supreme Court continues to insist that fetal existence even at nine months
gestation and at least partially through birth constitutes only "potential life" (Stenberg v. Carhart,
120 S. Ct. 2597, 2605 (2000)), the abortion rights leaders are more forthcoming. Consider the
following quotes: "I agree that the way in which the arguments for legal abortion have been
made include this inability to publicly deal with the fact that abortion takes a life"—Frances
Kissling, Catholics for a Free Choice, Ms. Magazine, May/June 1997, at 67; "I think we have
deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing"—Faye
Wattleton, former President of Planned Parenthood USA, Ms. Magazine, May/June 1997, at 67;
"Sometimes a woman has to decide to kill her baby. That is what abortion is"—Judith Arcana,
pro-choice author and educator, Chicago Weekly Reader, Feb. 17, 1995; "[T]he pro-life slogan,
‘abortion stops a beating heart,’ is incontrovertibly true"—Naomi Wolf, pro-choice author, New
Republic Magazine, Oct. 16, 1995, at 29; "We have reached a point in this particular technology
where there is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator. It is before one’s
eyes"—Dr. Warren Hern, Director of Boulder (Colo.) Abortion Clinic, Remarks at a meeting of
the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians, San Diego, Oct. 26, 1978; "I have angry
feelings at myself for feeling good about grasping the calvaria (head), for feeling good about
doing a technically good procedure which destroys a fetus, kills a baby"—A New Mexico
abortionist quoted in Diane M. Gianelli, Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts, Am. Med.
News, July 12, 1993, at 36.
[13] In 1850, the state’s highest court acknowledged that "homicide may be lawful or unlawful"
and listed the following examples of then-lawful forms of killing: the "war upon an enemy in
battle", the public "execution of justice upon a criminal, pursuant to a proper warrant", and the
private justifiable resort to "self-defense". Commonwealth v. Webster, 59 Mass. 295, 303 (1850).
[14] Moe v. Secretary of Admin. & Finance, 382 Mass. at 658 n.21.
[15] Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, 505 (1989).
[16] Commonwealth v. Cass, 392 Mass. 799, 801 (1984).
[17] 392 Mass. at 806.
[18] Id. at 807.
[19] 352 Mass. 446 (1967).
[20] Id. at 449 (construing M.G.L. Chap. 229, § 2).
[21] 386 Mass. 540, 563 (1982) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 869 comment d
(1979)).
[22] 419 Mass. 693, 695, 696 (1995).
[23] 419 Mass. at 695.
[24] See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Edelin, 371 Mass. 497, 511, 512 (1976) (overturning
conviction of doctor for death of a child during failed abortion and delivery because there was
"no indication that [the defendant] had a living being in his hands" at the time of the alleged
homicidal conduct, and "[m]anslaughter assumes the victim was a live and independent person").
[25] A.Z. v.B.Z., 431 Mass. 150, 151 n. 1 (referring to a report of the Ethics Committee of the
[then-named] American Fertility Society, Ethical Considerations of Assisted Reproductive
Technologies).
[26] 431 Mass. at 152-53.
[27] Id. at 160.
[28] The leading treatise on human embryology refuses to use the term preembryo because
scientifically speaking it is "ill defined and inaccurate." Ronan O’Rahilly & Fabiola Muller,
Human Embryology & Teratology 55 (1996). In addition, Prof. Lee Silver of Princeton
University, an advocate for cloning and destructive embryo research, has admitted that IVF
researchers embraced the term preembryo ‘for reasons that are political, not scientific.’ Lee M.
Silver, Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World 39 (1997).
[29] The Court takes advantage of the etymological fact that "conception" could refer to the
beginning of both the new human’s life and the new mother’s pregnancy. According to MerriamWebster’s, conception is "(1) the act of becoming pregnant: the state of being conceived. (2)
EMBRYO, FETUS". Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 238 (10th ed. 1999). The 18th
and latest edition of Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, available on the web, defines
conception as the "union of the male sperm and female ovum; fertilization", and makes no
reference at all to implantation. A quick survey of other popular sources reveals widespread
acceptance of this understanding of the term. The heavily visited web sites for "epregnancy.com"
and "pregnancytoday.com" inform parents and parents-to-be that conception refers to "the union
of the sperm and the ovum" and thus, at conception, "when the sperm penetrates the egg, a new
life has been created". Finally, it distorts the intention of pro-life inspired laws to presume that
the ultimate objective of a legislative reference to "conception" is merely to protect pregnancies
from interruption rather than human lives from destruction.
[30] Dr. Guenin indicated his support for the philosophical view that a human embryo could not
qualify as a "person" because the entity is not a rational being, i.e., could not immediately
express thoughts, feelings, or otherwise interact. Dr. Guenin appears confused about the
difference between the classical understanding of "rational being" and the behavioral act of
"being rational". Contrary to Dr. Guenin’s assertions, philosophers use "rational being" to
indicate that members of a particular species bear a trait characteristic of the species that gives
each member the biological potential to develop a brain, etc. Moreover, the rationality test for
personhood has garnered considerable criticism for reviving an old Cartesian supposition that the
mind and the body are split realities and that the person exists solely within the mind.
[31] An issue not raised in the hearings, but often mentioned in the debate, is the issue of size.
How can "dots" be treated as equal to a baby 21 inches long at delivery? If human beings can
exist at such a small size, then logically size should not matter. But how can something as small
as a period have any value or significance? Just as a dot despite its small size can make a
meaningful difference in the two sums of $1.0000000000 and $10000000.00, so too a human
zygote can possess a life meaningful in the law’s eyes as a member of the human species. When
applying the homicide code, discrimination according to size is just as arbitrary as discrimination
based on skin color or life expectancy.
[32] The argument is distilled from the following articles, all of which provide careful and
compelling documentation identifying the human embryo as an individual member of the human
community: The Identity and Status of the Human Embryo: Proceedings of Third Assembly of
the Pontifical Academy for Life (Juan de Dios Vial Correa & Elio Sgreccia, eds. 1999); Benedict
Ashley & Albert S. Moraczewski, Is the Biological Subject of Human Rights Present From
Conception?, in The Fetal Tissue Issue: Medical and Ethical Aspects (Peter J. Cataldo & Albert
S. Moraczewski eds. 1994); Mark Johnson, Quaestio Disputata: Delayed Hominization,
Reflections on Some Recent Catholic Claims for Delayed Hominization, 56 Theological Studies
743 (1995); Mark Johnson, Quaestio Disputata: Delayed Hominization, A Rejoinder to Thomas
Shannon, 58 Theological Studies 708 (1997); Dianne N. Irving, The Woman and the Physician
Facing Abortion: The Role of Correct Science in the Formation of Conscience and the Moral
Decision Making Process, Linacre Quarterly, Nov. 2000, at 21; Dianne N. Irving, When Do
Human Beings Begin? "Scientific" Myths and Scientific Facts, 19 International Journal of
Sociology and Social Policy 22 (1999); W. Jerome Bracken, Is the Early Embryo a Person?,
Linacre Quarterly, Feb. 2001, at 49.
[33] The phenomenon of chimeras, where two or more living beings combine together is
susceptible to the same explanation but in reverse: the combination could destroy all but one of
the beings, or result in the creation of an entirely new human life after the deaths of the
previously existing beings.
Massachusetts Catholic Conference, West End Place, 150 Staniford Street, Boston, MA 021142511, Phone: 617-367-6060; Fax: 617-367-2767 Author's
Email: danielavila@macathconf.org Website: http://www.macathconf.org