T H I N G

Society, language and “culture” constrain human action and behavior by defining roles, providing a specific vocabulary, and otherwise framing the field in which individual actors relate to one another. However the social field includes more than just human beings; it includes objects, animals and other things to which humans also relate in a social sense. Within this expanded framework it becomes very important for anthropologists to know precisely what is meant by the term “human being,” the ostensible object of anthropological study. However the dichotomy between categories of human and nonhuman must be considered problematic. Using issues and examples that stem from new reproductive technologies, this paper will discuss changing perceptions of the human embryo and the variable extent to which it is considered human. I will argue that the embryo is embroiled in the workings of several coexisting sociostructural networks, in which discourse, ideology, and expectations of behavior define differently whether it is considered as a person or a thing. Every situation merits a different dividing line between what is human and what is not. 

According to Claude Levi-Strauss, the impetus of the human mind to classify and categorize its surroundings begins with binary oppositions (1966: 135), human and nonhuman, being one of the first and most basic distinctions made by this logical compulsion. Citing Ferdinand de Saussure, Levi-Strauss agrees that “the mind contrives to produce a principle of order and regularity upon the mass of signs”—this being the motivation behind the construction of all classificatory systems (Saussure 1966 [1915]: 133; Levi-Strauss 1966: 156). 

For Saussure, the sign is arbitrary, there being no inherent connection between the signifier and the signified (1966: 67). Yet the world itself, and all its contents are arbitrary as well, or at least may seem so when one is faced with the task of naming and categorizing them. Thus Levi-Strauss recognized that no classificatory system is absolute and that the nearer categorical distinctions get to “concrete groups, the more we must expect to find arbitrary distinctions and denominations which are explicable primarily in terms of occurrences and events, and defy any logical arrangement” (1966: 155). Certainly then, as technological advancements make existing categories less and less clear, the dividing line between them must come down based only on what is relevant in any given situation. Who then makes these distinctions, but the people for whom such categories are situationally relevant?

According to Igor Kopytoff, “The realm of human reproduction is one in which the difference between persons and things is particularly difficult to define, defying all attempts at drawing a simple line where there is a natural continuum” (1986: 86). Advancing reproductive technologies such as In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), the cryogenic freezing of embryos, ultrasound imaging, amniocentesis and chromosomal analysis are continually pushing back the social start of human life to months and even years before birth. Meanwhile, the array of reproductive choices available to women continues to expand, blurring the categorical distinctions between human and nonhuman, life and pre-life, at least with regard to the social and biological process of human reproduction.  

the social egg, (when life begins pre-pregnancy)

 A fertilized egg, a human zygote, multiplies at a rate of approximately two cell divisions per day, rapidly doubling, then quadrupling, and growing exponentially in size. In a zygote each cell is identical to the others, though as they continue to multiply, slowly, they will differentiate, building out of themselves a human form and its protective encasement. First, in the balstocyst stage, a primitive placenta and amniotic sac appear as different from each other and the few remaining cells then designated as the embryo. Over the course of nine months, the embryonic stem cells will divide and separate, becoming bone, tissue, organ, and arranging themselves into circulatory, respiratory, digestive and skeletal-muscular systems as the fetus takes a human appearance. Lastly the nervous system, as it weaves through and between them all, will connect the bodily systems under the dominion of the growing brain, (whose construction is itself incomplete until years after birth), and the life, now viable outside of the womb, may be born. This, at least, is its ultimate and best potential, in the face of many genetic and environmental challenges.[1]

A zygote at the four cell stage is photographed on a microscope slide. Such an image can only be made when fertilization takes place in vitro, in an artificial environment outside the womb, at which point the zygote has several potential futures. If fertilized for the purposes of an assisted pregnancy, it could be inserted into its genetrix’s[2] or another woman’s uterus and, if very successful, could grow into a normal, healthy baby, or it could be cryogenically frozen and preserved for an indefinite period of time until it is either implanted or destroyed. Alternatively, if the zygote was created or donated for purposes of research, it could be made to multiply continuously, with technicians routinely separating the cells from one another to keep it always in the zygote stage. If, however, the zygote was allowed to multiply and grow in vitro, should it survive at all without the safety and nourishment of a mother’s womb, the result would likely be a teratoma[3], or grossly deformed, mass of cells with parts resembling superficial human features, such as teeth, hair or skin, but has no capacity to grow into functional human beings.[4]

So what is a zygote, whether outside or inside of a woman’s uterus? Is it human? Nonhuman? Not inhuman, but only potentially human given the right circumstances? Although the distinction may be difficult to make for some, at least one clear line has been drawn in the sand.

The Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency, with the help of an endowment from the Federal Government, established the Snowflake Foundation, an agency named after “snowflake babies,” the children of successful IVF, for the exchange of unwanted or unclaimed frozen embryos[5]. Although fertility clinics had often arranged private exchanges between reproductively challenged individuals and couples, the Snowflake Foundation has organized and publicized the transfer of embryos using the jargon and legal proceedings of formal adoption, crystallizing these embryonic entities as persons, rather than property or commodities (Caplan 2003).

A Christian organization with a high media profile, due to the support given it by President George W. Bush, the Snowflake Foundation states that life begins when an embryo is created[6]. Taking a moral stand against embryo destruction, the Snowflake Foundation purports to help “frozen embryos realize their ultimate purpose—life.”[7] With limited space for cryogenic storage, however, fertility clinics usually reserve the right to destroy embryos that have gone unclaimed for a certain period of time, though doctors are generally hesitant to do so and will maintain the embryos as long as there is space to keep them (Friedlin 2007).  Thus, in the media discourse, frozen embryos are portrayed as “Pre-born children, waiting for a chance at life,”[8] waiting to be rescued from the imminent danger of death.

Although the embryos to which this discourse refers are still undifferentiated masses of cells, with poor chances of becoming viable fetuses and surviving to term (Friedlin 2007), the language used makes them the equivalent of born, living human children—as if a frozen embryo is as in need of a loving family and their social and economic resources as a child already living in foster care, awaiting adoption. Certainly a human zygote is a special object, hovering somewhere between human and nonhuman, otherwise doctors would not be so hesitant to dispose of them, there wouldn’t be laws regulating the use and sale of them (Friedlin 2007), and they would not be so precious to those who cannot make them. However, as invaluable as the service provided by the Snowflake Foundation is, the fetishization of the frozen embryo, which has occurred through the pro-life discourse, misdirects attention, sympathy, and resources from the living to the nonliving, from the born to the not-yet-born. 

 

the visible fetus, (when personhood beings before birth)

Part of what has precipitated this apparent conceptual confusion are the technological advancements that enable physical and visual access to human life at earlier and earlier stages of the reproductive process. Ultrasound and 3D echo imaging direct high-frequency sound waves at the uterus to produce real-time ‘images’ of its contents, (really digital representations of sound bouncing off dense objects such as bone and cartilage). Though the technology to see a fetus is only useful after it has grown to a detectable size and density, sonography enables the visualization and crystallization of what had previously been the personal, bodily experience of the mother. This has important social consequences for both mother and child, whose social roles begin to separate even as their bodies are fused. According to Rayna Rapp (1999), “The real-time fetus is a social fetus, available for public viewing and commentary at a much earlier stage than the moment of quickening[9], which used to mark its entry into the world beyond its mother’s belly” (119-120).

Visual access to the fetus can lead, for example to increased specialization in prenatal fetal (as opposed to maternal) care, even before it is viable outside the mother’s uterus. What the Williams’ Obstetrics manual refers to as an obstetrician’s “second patient” (Planned Parenthood 2002) swiftly crystallizes, through sonography, into a neonatologist’s primary patient, even though a sonogram can do very little beyond gauge the accurate size and age of a fetus, monitor growth and heart rates, and detect visible abnormalities. In one example cited by Rapp, an ambiguous fetal abnormality found after a sonogram and amniocentesis prompted a team of doctors, technicians and counselors to push a woman to continue an already ambivalent pregnancy for the sake of saving the fetus and documenting an interesting case (1999: 235). In this situation, at least, the lead doctor realized the pressures his team was placing on the mother by encouraging her to prolong a risky pregnancy and finally deferred to her the decision to abort. In other cases, however, the mother’s well being is less of a concern. In 1985 a woman sued for damages for emotional distress after it was discovered that her stillborn baby died as a result of a botched amniocentesis. The New York Court of Appeals ruled that as she did not “witness” the trauma to the fetus, though it was inside her at the time, she could not be compensated for any resulting emotional injuries (Margolick 1985, Petchesky 1987: 284).

But the quickening of an unborn fetus into a social human also occurs at an individual and familial level. Sonogram images themselves can impact parents positively by enabling bonding with an unborn child through its visualization (Petchesky 1987: 279, Rapp 1999: 104). Some mothers claim seeing its sonogram makes the baby “more real”, or “more our baby”, though this likely only true for those whose pregnancies are desired (Petchesky 279). Visualization begins the process of social integration, through which parents prepare their homes and their social lives for the entrance of a new child, establishing a role for it to enter at birth. 

On the other hand, sonograms also “blur the boundary between fetus and baby, and reinforce the idea that the fetus’ identity as separate and autonomous from the mother…exists from the start” (Petchesky 1987: 272). The black and white digital imagery of a fetus, or rather its visible outline, has a fuzzy, other-worldly tint to it, begging the comparison to a “little space creature, alone in space” (Rapp 1997: 134), an apt description for a social entity that is stripped of its physical context. And indeed, the isolated fetus is a romantic, and politically useful image for this very reason.

A portrait of a pink, shut-eyed fetus floats solitary on a black background with soft backlighting lending it an ethereal quality. Popular images like this one unquestionably elevate the fetus, like the frozen embryo, to the status of a fetish object. Removed from the context of the mother’s body, the fetus represents, according to Petchesky, a Hobbesian homunculus, its “abstract individualism effacing the pregnant woman and the fetus’ dependence on her” so that it may absorb a projected, symbolic identity, disconnected from its mother (1987: 270).

This icon of the solitary, independent fetus has been co-opted by pro-life activism, in what is primarily a visual campaign against abortion. Believing that the choice to abort is “due to an ignorance of fetal life” (Ginsburg 1997: 150), many pro-life activists hope to persuade women to keep unwanted pregnancies by ‘showing’ them their fetus. Thus the corona-crowned fetal images on the protest posters, publications and websites of pro-life activists achieve a “self-fulfilling prophecy by making the fetus a public presence (Petchesky 1987: 264). However, as with the sonogram image of the “little space man,” fetal personhood can only be achieved by removing altogether the person of the mother, in whose body the fetus grows, takes nourishment, and until birth is wholly dependent upon.

In connection with other images used in pro-life activism, those of bloody late-term abortions or stillborn fetuses, the contrast is quite dramatic. Though still lacking any representation of a pregnant woman, these images do have a material context—medical waste buckets, hospital floors, latex gloves, and menacing instruments[10]. This visual campaign is undeniably moving, even emotionally distressing. However, it is successful only by conflating distinctions between life within and without the mother’s uterus, and by blurring developmental benchmarks of viable life. Premature fetuses that never would survive on their own are portrayed both as independent entities in a void, and as murder victims forcibly removed into an inhospitable world that plots their demise. Although those who take a moral stance against abortion often do have humane motivations for the preservation of fetal life, and may indeed sympathize with troubled mothers, the propaganda employed to convince women to keep unwanted pregnancies is clearly manipulative and intentionally confusing.

           

brief timeline of fetal development

It is necessary here to clarify the timeline of prenatal development in order to understand the nuance of distinctions made viable and non viable human life. Although a fertilized egg, or zygote, begins multiplying almost immediately, its cells do not being to differentiate for several days, and a distinct embryo is not apparent for the first several weeks. During most of the first trimester, when most abortions occur, the embryo itself is more fish-like in appearance than human, and by the end of 12 weeks only the most rudimentary versions of structural and organ systems are present. At 14 weeks the fetus starts producing some of its own blood and two weeks later the heart and circulatory system are functional. At 19 weeks the nervous system and sensory development is just beginning The fetus cannot yet feel pain, as this is only possible after the complete configuration of the cerebellum and mylenization (covering) of the brain and spinal cord, which occurs between weeks 20 and 40. [11] Less than 1 percent of all abortions occur after week 22 (Planned Parenthood 2002), and most states hold abortion to be illegal after week 24, or in the third trimester of pregnancy, during which time the brain becomes more active and the lungs become functional, and potentially viable outside of the womb. Survival rates of premature babies increase significantly after week 24.

           

the broken baby, (when complications prompt late-term decisions)

There is much that can go wrong in any given pregnancy, and as the mother’s age increases, or if she and the biological father carry certain genetic traits, the chance of a fetus developing a congenital abnormality increases as well. With the development of amniocentesis and a complete map of the human genome, however, a karyotype chart of an individual’s 46 chromosomes, literally a map of his or her genetic make-up, can be a useful technique for diagnosing common genetic disorders in high risk pregnancies. Amniocentesis is first possible at 14 weeks, by which time it is presumable that the pregnancy is desired, and the mother is busy preparing her life for the entry of a new child. Yet the possibility of a positive diagnosis of congenital abnormality confronts women and their families with the question of whether or not that fetus can be the imaginary child they had prepared for, whether or not they have the emotional, social, and financial resources to care for it, and whether or not to abort.

Within the technician’s lab, where chromosomal analysis occurs, fetal cells must be extracted from the amniotic fluid and placed in an incubator, where they are “planted”, “fed” and “grow.” After a few days, cells undergoing mitosis, (DNA duplication) are “harvested” and examined (Rapp 1999: 194-196). A computer program aids technicians in locating and defining an image of a cell in which all 46 chromosomes are clearly visible, and then ordering them into the karyotype chart. Every karyotype must be “diagnosed,” meaning every abnormality, even if it is not clearly associated with a known congenital disorder, must be described; Rapp sees this as a superficial attempt at control, “the continuous construction of stable interpretations in the face of material ambiguity” (208). Even the most precise diagnoses is difficult to translate into a prognosis for the fetus’ future life; “the difference between a biologically described organism and a socially integrated child is, of course, enormous” (198).When relayed to the waiting mother the ambiguity of a positive diagnosis is doubtlessly distressing and complicates the decision she must make regarding the termination or continuation of her pregnancy. According to Rapp, many women would prefer “a clear-cut boundary established between pregnancy-leading-to-life and pregnancy-leading-to-death,” presumably so that the decision they must make is less a matter of choice than of obvious necessity (238).

In the face of such traumatic information and difficult decisions, the tendency of the surrounding social network, as in the technicians’ diagnostic lab, is to medicalize and objectify the fetus. Rapp gives an example of one woman who received a positive diagnosis:

“When we walked into the doctor’s office, both my husband and I were crying. He looked up and said, “What’s wrong? Why are you both in tears?” “It’s our baby. Our baby is going to die,” I said. “That isn’t a baby,” he said firmly. “It’s a collection of cells that made a mistake.” (1999: 220).

Although many women do mourn for lost and aborted late-term pregnancies (Rapp 1999: 242), this kind of rationalization doubtlessly eases the transition from pregnant to not pregnant without the birth of a child. In a sense, the modern array of reproductive technologies and new choices means that this sterile, medical view was available all along, just as the fetishization and mythologization of the fetus is continuously occurring within the pro-life social sphere. But as pregnancy progresses, and a mother becomes acquainted with the thing inside her, as her personal feelings for it evolve and she begins to accept and integrate a new person into her life, it is between these two opposing discourses that she must tread. And ultimately, it is she who draws the line between what is human and what is not.

 

conclusion (when to draw the line)

Saussure argued that “the individual does not have the power to change a sign in any way once it has become established” (1966: 69). Likewise Levi-Strauss declared that, once imposed, systems of classification are “finite and inflexible in form” (1966: 199). But where signs are unclear and categories are not yet imposed or are somehow inadequate, it must be left to the individual to make these distinctions for herself. Women who face reproductive decisions—abortion, fertility treatment or otherwise—are acting at the edges of the cultural framework, where the arbitrary lines that organize their world are even less clear. Though women must endure culturally influenced consequences as a result of the decisions they make, every such decision is culturally constructive, a unique opportunity to choose for oneself what cultural categories, realms of discourse and social networks apply to a given situation. It is up to the individual, the woman who must make a reproductive choice, to determine what is human, what life is viable, and what future is acceptable, and to make that decision for herself alone, according to her totally unique circumstances.
 

bibliography

Caplan, Arthur. June 24, 2003. “The Problem with ‘Embryo Adoption’, Why is the Government giving money to ‘Snowflakes’?” MSNBC.com, accessed 4/17/2007.

 

Dorfman, S., H. Peterson, W. Rashbaum, S. Romney, A. Rosenfeld, H. Vaughan, and Y. Ming-Neng. 2002 [1985]. “The Facts Speak Louder than ‘The Silent Scream’.” New York: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood 2002)

Friedlin, Jennifer. 2007 (Copyright on website, not article). “A Charitable Conception.” Embryo Adoption, accessed 5/8/07.

Ginsburg, Faye. 1997. “The ‘Word-Made’ Flesh” in Situated Lives; Gender and Culture in Everyday Life, Lamphere, Ragoné and Zavella, ed. New York: Routledge.

Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. “The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai, pp. 64-94. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1966. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Margolick, David. June 16, 1985. “Damages Reflected in Death of Fetus.” New York Times, WEBSITE, accessed 5/8/2007.

Nathanson, Bernard, Dir. “The Silent Scream.” 1984. American Portrait Films, Executive Producer Donald S. Smith.

Petchesky, Rosalind. 1987. “Fetal Images: The power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction” in Feminist Studies 13(2): 263-92.

Rapp, Rayna. 1997. “Constructing Amniocentesis; Maternal and Medical Discourses” in Situated Lives; Gender and Culture in Everyday Life, Lamphere, Ragoné and Zavella, ed. New York: Routledge.

Rapp, Rayna. 1999. Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1966 [1915]. Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw Hill.

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