First, I want to start off with the inference of the prolife community that a zygote is it's own organism.
Sentiments such as:
"Life begins at conception."
"It's a human being."
The offense they take when someone states that a zef is a clump of cells.
The lack of concern over gametes.
The lack of concern for the death of say, a kidney, if you were to remove it from your body and let it sit on a table and die.
The counter argument to "my body, my choice" being "not your body and not your choice."
All of these notions infer that they mark a difference between cellular life and organismic life and that conception is the catalyst for that change. That conception confers a change from cellular life to it now being an organism.
This also infers a lack of understanding the process of gestation and the lack of belief that becoming your own organism is a process rather than a definitive point in time, such as conception (which I would point out can take up to 24 hours to complete and is not as cut and dry either.)
I do not disagree that conception is a catalyst for change and there is a marked difference from mere cellular life. However, I do not agree that conception creates a whole separate organism.
There are several different definitions of organism which are problematic when we are trying to determine if something is or isn't an organism.
I will state, I do not think a zef is not an organism, but rather it is not its own organism. It is a part of another organism.
I think the issue prolifers have in understanding my premise is that I am somehow trying to show that a zef is not an organism at all. And that is not my position.
My position is that a zef is in the process of becoming an organism. Just as a tadpole goes through a process of becoming a frog or a caterpillar goes through the process of becoming a butterfly. Gestation is a similar process in mammals.
Definitions:
Dictionary.com's definition of organism:
a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.
From Biology Online:
An organism refers to a living thing that has an organized structure, can react to stimuli, reproduce, grow, adapt, and maintain homeostasis.
Planned Parenthood's definition of a zygote:
The single-celled organism that results from the joining of the egg and sperm (fertilization)
First, on dictionary.com's definition, a zef requires its mother to perform vital processes for it. Her body is a part of its "mutually interdependent parts."
Vice versa is also true, however her survival is not dependent upon the zef where as the zef is dependent upon her. This tells us that she is a complete organism on her own regardless of her pregnancy state, whereas the zef is not yet a complete organism.
Moving on to Biology Online's definition.
Organized structure - I am not familiar with what organized structure refers to here. It has organized structure similar to that of a cell or a gamete. It does not, however stay at this level of organization, which I will touch upon later on.
We could place more organized structure changes at, say, cell differentiation, or perhaps once the organs begin to be more formed at the fetal stage. But it would be more accurate to say that it is organIZING into its end goal structure. It is still in a liminal state of transformation, whereas true, single cell organisms, are not going through a state of transformation. They are complete. They are whole.
React to stimuli - This doesn't happen till later into pregnancy, reinforcing the idea that becoming an organism is a gradual process.
Reproduction - A zef reproduces its own cells. However, if they are referring to sexual reproduction, then I find this problematic. Infants cannot reproduce yet, but they will one day. So merely having the potential to reproduce is sufficient enough. However, this creates an issue if merely having the potential for something makes you an organism, then gametes can also be considered organisms, when they are clearly not. They are merely cells. I also think it is arbitrary to assign "potential" to only reproduction and not the other components. But I digress. Either way, I think we can all agree that regardless if one has the ability to reproduce or not, it is still an organism, so it isn't too much of an issue in practice.
Grow - This is clear that they are growing
Adapt - Yes, a zef can adapt
Maintain homeostasis - This is where I find the concept of a zef being its own individual organism problematic and this is what I will be spending the most of my time on.
Homeostasis
They cannot maintain homeostasis on their own, and they don't until birth.
Maintaining homeostasis is the basis for life. If you are unable to do this, you die, which is when you cease to be an organism.
They maintain some amount of their own homeostasis, yes. But so do testes and the blood brain barrier, and they are still parts of a whole organism.
When we remove them from the whole organism that is the mother, it will die before a certain point. Before it is able to maintain its own homeostasis. Which also is telling that becoming an organism is a gradual process, the completion of which, is at the separation from its host which happens at birth, whether that be prematurely or at term.
(For more information about how a ZEF is homeostatically, metabolically, functionally, topologically, and immunologically intertwined with its mother, see here)
Environment
From the prolife argument for SLED (size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency). This is a common prolife talking point, that the womb is merely the environment in which the zef needs to be in in order to survive. Much like you, too, would die, if you were ejected into space.
If inability to maintain homeostasis is relative to environment and environment only, then none of us could be considered to be organisms as we all have different environments that we can die in.
This isn't about environment or location. Take a recently born infant and put them back in the womb, and they will die.
This is relative to it being hooked into another organism. Space isn't an organism. Earth isn't an organism. The fact that you can live on Earth but not in space isn't dependent on your being an organism.
We are talking about if you are your own organism. No human cell, whether inside another human or not, can survive in space. Therefore, it is irrelevant to this discussion.
The fact that you can live hooked into another person but not unhooked from one means you are not your own organism. At least from a biological stance.
The distinction between the womb and space is often overlooked.
It isn't just about a change in environment. Whether I am in the desert sun or on a snowy tundra, I am carrying out my own metabolic processes. My environment is not carrying that out for me. Whereas the "environment" you are referring to in the case of a zef in utero, is a whole other organism. Human bodies = organisms. Snowy tundra & desert sun =/= organisms.
A zef's mother is carrying out those processes for it. It is one with her organism, it is not its own separate organism. The fact is that they, too, require a fully functioning body. Hence, why they need to be hooked into one from the outset. They are not a complete organism just yet. If they were, they would not be hooked into another organism for survival.
I think prolifers are uncomfortable with liminal states of being. It is not yet its own organism simply because it has a complete set of dna. That's the start of the creation into an organism. It needs more than that. Becoming your own organism is a gradual process. Conception is a pivotal moment, but so is gestation, which the prolife movement discredits and make it out to be as if it is just an "environment." That it is just a question of SLED.
Zefs are metabolically intertwined with their mother. This factor cannot be ignored. It is a part of its mother's body.
Medical devices/aides/interventions
A common rebuttal to this concept of what is and isn't an organism is the need for some humans to have medical aide to sustain your life.
For example, a diabetic who is in need of insulin, will die without it. Are they not their own organism then?
I would posit this question: what happens if they do not get that insulin?
The answer is that they die. Which means they cease to be an organism.
Just like with the Earth/Space paradigm, the medical intervention paradigm is not analogous to biological realities.
This isn't about a need for medical intervention, this is about another organism supplying you with your metabolic processes.
There is a difference between biologically being in utero having another organism supply your metabolic processes to you and having an artificially created medicine given to you.
What I am talking about is the natural, clean slate premise, before we add in additional factors such as medical devices.
For instance, a bacteria is still deadly and harmful to a human even if we have medical technology that brings that rate down to zero. Its biology tells us this, and this is the premise for how we determine if a bacteria is in fact deadly or not, even if science and medicine comes in later and changes that.
Biology can be manipulated by medicine, but this doesn't tell us anything about what biology dictates as an organism.
Organisms are in the realm of biology. We need to look at biology, not geography and medicine, to lay the groundwork for the definition of organism.
Level of Organization
This brings me to my last point. Here, we will look at Planned Parenthood's definition of a zygote, which defines it as an organism.
I am not denying that single celled organisms exist. They do. However, humans are not ordered towards single celled organisms. That is not their level of organization.
There is the "Hierarchical Organization of Animal Complexity." There are 5 groups:
Protoplasmic grade of organization
Cellular grade of organization
Cell-tissue grade of organization
Tissue-Organ grade of organization
Organ-system grade of organization
Humans are in the last stage of organization. Stages before this are not their end result. So just because a zygote is at the protoplasmic level and moves into the cellular level, doesn't make it its own organism. Because that is not the end goal for human organisms.
Additionally, organisms at that level of organization are not "hooked into" other organisms in order to survive. They might live inside of another organism, such as our gut flora, but they are not hooked into our bodies. They carry out their own metabolic processes and for them, the inside of the human body truly is an environment.
I would like to end with a point made by a redditor in this comment here.
In using the definition of death provided by google, "the permanent ending of vital processes in a cell or tissue" the redditor had this to say: "If death is defined by the cessation of all vital functions, especially the stoppage of the heart, respiration, and brain activity, then logically it follows that a fetus is not alive until it displays all the vital functions associated with life and death."
A fetus does not display this till birth, which can be anywhere from 24+ weeks gestation depending on the medical state of the fetus and its mother.
Conferring human rights
Ultimately, I have an issue with the insistence that a zygote is a full human organism.
There are differences between gametes and zygotes. Of this, prolifers agree. But there is not consideration for the differences between a gestated zef and a newborn infant, which I find rather illogical to ignore.
Attributing a zef as a human organism, a human being, at the moment of conception, which in and of itself is a process, is where they place their basis for conferring rights.
All while ignoring that becoming your own organism is a gradual process. That gestation is important for human organisms and without being hooked into another organism's metabolic processes, they will die.
They believe that gestation is no different than feeding your newborn, keeping them warm, and wiping their butt. There is no acknowledgement of the differences between physical labor and metabolic labor (which include including the extraction of oxygen, digestion, temperature regulation and waste disposal, something no born child needs provided to them.)
If someone is going to use the term "organism" as basis for imbuing and revoking rights, then I think it is important that we discuss that definition. Especially considering that prolifers literally believe that the abortion debate is about when life starts.
I think that to imbue human rights to an incomplete organism is folly. And this essay displays differences between born organisms and developing organisms in utero.
It is also dehumanizing to complete organisms, born humans, to place our worth at the same level of protoplasmic organisms.
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