Let an Enlightened Discourse on the Embryo Truly Emerge

The exhilarating free-love Woodstock years had an obvious downside—unwanted pregnancies. Women were often late in discovering that they were pregnant and were forced to choose between quietly dropping out of university and having the child or seeking late-term abortions from wherever they could find one. Young men involved were generally not up to being fathers. Birth control advancements in the decades that followed changed the landscape somewhat, but women continued to bear the burden of unintended pregnancies. And still do. . .

Scientists have discovered that the mechanism in tumor development and embryo development is the same. However, while science has been successful in communicating the dynamics of cancer, it has not similarly captured the attention of the public when it comes to a proper discourse regarding the embryo, i.e., educating the public as to what an embryo is. With in vitro gametogenesis and other reproductive technologies in the ascendance, it is imperative that that discussion take place now world-wide.

An upcoming scientific conference on the gastrula, which is where embryonic induction begins, is of particular importance— “Self-organization in Biology: Freiburg Spemann-Mangold Centennial Symposium.”

It’s been 100 years since the discovery by Hilde Mangold and Hans Spemann of the “gastrula as organizer” in vertebrate development, which resulted in a Nobel Prize in 1935. Some 40 scientists will present at the German symposium in November; among the notables: Ray Keller, Alfonso Martinez Arias, Detlev Arendt, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Stefano Piccolo, Roberto Mayor.

But as crucial as the gastrula stage in embryonic development is, it is certainly not a fully functioning human being. Not until a fetus can breathe its first breath of air do we have a human—says developmental biologist Scott Gilbert, who thinks the public is currently being fed pseudo-embryology.

Phillip Sloan, Notre Dame philosopher and historian of science emeritus, makes the further argument in a recent paper that the public is being fed 17th and 18th century “preformationism” with the Dobbs decision on abortion.

There is “no simple one-one linkage of DNA structure and phenotype,” Sloan writes and he pleads for what philosopher Herbert Spiegelberg described as ”recovery and recognition of the thinking, reflective human being”.

Advanced microscopy continues to reveal intriguing images of embryonic development. Neutron scattering promises to take us even deeper into the process. In the meantime, it is urgent that the political and scientific establishment respect the public by upholding human dignity and honestly inform regarding developments in modern embryology.

Esteemed evolutionary scientist Antonio Lima-de-Faria, who died in December at age 102, cautioned against “a wave of obscurantism spreading over Western countries” affecting science. Let an enlightened public discourse on the embryo truly emerge.