Prometheus 6

Sad. Truly sad.

Tyrone is right...time for sister to use at least a couple of the brain cells God gave her.

This belief that ensoulment happens at the moment of conception is more than challenged, it is denied by in-vitro fertilization technology. This thought first occurred to me when I found out fertilized eggs are examined for defects by removing a cell at a very early stage of development.

Fertility doctors have known for years that early embryos seem unfazed by the removal of any one of their eight virtually identical cells, called blastomeres. In fact, it is common today to remove a single, representative blastomere from a laboratory-conceived embryo and test that cell for disease genes before deciding whether to transfer that embryo into a woman's womb.

My immediate, rather cynical, reaction was, "Wow, how do you get into heaven with one eighth of your soul gone?"

And do you know how they freeze embryos?

They replace enough of the water in the cell with a cryoprotectant...like anti-freeze...to keep it from rupturing. I assume they replace the cryoprotectant with water after they thaw one out.

Now, the question must be asked...after having a significant fraction of the water it contains replaced with ethylene glycol or glycerol and being frozen, after having their fundamental physical nature altered, are they alive? Are they even cells?

Now, thaw and implant one of those embryos. Bring it to term.

Is the offspring alive?

Two questions with yes/no answers. Let's build a little truth table to see what the repercussions of all possible answers to these questions might be.

It's pretty obvious that the frozen result could not be called alive. Not only is there no biological activity going on in there, the material necessary for biological activity isn't even present...not enough water, too much (which is to say, any at all) antifreeze.

Yet they are restored, implanted and children have been brought to term. And I defy anyone, no matter how pious, to look at those children and declare they have no soul.

Unliving things have no soul, living humans do, right? So the child's soul had to "arrive" after implantation. There is no other possibility. Most likely ensoulment requires a physical vehicle capable of supporting life.

Maybe life begins when the fertilized egg is properly implanted in the womb. The repercussions of such a conclusion would be subtle...for instance, the Catholic doctrine against contraception wouldn't be weakened at all. It could still be a mortal sin to interfere with the process, religious beliefs on the proper actions to take need not change. But it would undermine attempts to paint abortion as murder when the physical receptical for a soul isn't ready to support said soul yet.

But the most interesting repercussion of all would be the forced recognition that dogma extrapolated by humans is limited by human knowledge. That would put more than a couple Pharisees in serious risk of exposure.