Definition of the Embryo: Time to Be Clear, Very Clear
by Jaydee Hanson and Patrick F. Fagan
Posted May 11, 2006

What is an embryo? This is a basic biological question that involves more than mere biology. Unfortunately the definition, rather than getting clearer, may be getting fuzzier in the current bioethics debate that is raging from the halls of Congress to the battleground state of Missouri.

The defining of the word embryo, however, cannot be confined just to biological sciences alone. Rather, the philosophical premises (their conception of the nature of man) held by scientists come into play. Some scientists are side-stepping the human implications of the term ‘embryo’ by substituting technical terms such as ‘blastocyst’ or ‘totipotent.’ Such Orwellian distortions by scientists who are utilitarian is no surprise but what is surprising is that some right-to-life advocates may be taken with a similar strategy.

Some right-to-life proponents of a technique called ‘altered nuclear transfer’ or ‘oocyte assisted reprogramming’ (ANT-OAR) claim that this technique does not really create an embryo but rather directly creates embryonic stem cells. However, this technique is remarkably similar to human cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer). In somatic cell nuclear transfer, the nucleus of a body cell is placed into an egg that has had its chromosomes removed. This creates a cloned embryo. All agree on this. the rest