The Language of Certainty

William Cheshire's article (2004) addresses two distinct areas of inquiry:

1. the ethics of journalism; and
2. the moral status of the embryo.

In relation to the first area he advocates that journalists pay increased attention to truth and accuracy. However, much in Cheshire's account suggests that it is the second issue that interests him and, further, that his account of "truth" and "accuracy" is governed by this interest. His study of newspaper articles about embryo research presumes a great deal of certainty about the moral status of the embryo. In this short response I want to reflect on the study's presumptions and then briefly look at a particular tradition of discourse about the embryo.

Cheshire is right to point out that journalism by its very nature is a difficult medium for sorting out the intricacies of complex moral arguments. His study finds that newspaper articles reflect a lack of consensus on human embryo research and that terms that upgrade the embryo and terms that downgrade it are unevenly distributed. He is dismayed that embryos are not referred to as "persons," "babies," "living," and so on. For him the human embryo has moral standing. This premise, while not directly stated, is evident throughout his paper.

For instance, in his study of the language used in newspaper accounts to describe embryos, Cheshire notes, "Some language adopted a sterile tone unsuited for a discussion of human subjects and gave an air of scientific impartiality to the bias that human embryos are morally inert." Only someone intent on defending the opposite view—that embryos have moral standing—would make such a criticism of scientific impartiality. More evidence of his own bias emerges when he employs the value-laden categories upgrading and downgrading to describe the language used in the journalistic accounts surveyed for his study. Attached to his Table 1 is a note that lists which descriptions qualify for each category. Each list contains a wide spectrum of terms. For instance, in the list of downgrading terms he includes research tools and potential life, and in the list for upgrading terms human organism and brother or sister. Lumping these terms together does a disservice to the full spectrum of views held about the embryo. I don't dispute Cheshire's right to hold a position on the moral status issue; I simply point out that it governs his account of truth and accuracy in the media.

He states early in the paper that "a society that seeks the truth and prefers thoughtful ethical debate to political fiat will insist on accurate word choice." What constitutes accuracy in describing the embryo and what happens when the bias goes in a direction different from the one that Cheshire identifies in his study on newspaper articles? In other words, what if the language to describe embryos had taken on an air of certainty?

One way to explore that possibility is to look at a tradition of moral certainty about the status of the embryo. Catholic documents that discuss the embryo are consistent in their use of what Cheshire would call "upgrading" terms to describe the embryo. The embryo is a person with dignity and with the full complement of rights. The embryo is discussed at length in Donum Vitae (Vatican 1987), the Vatican's most complete document on issues related to reproductive technology. It is always referred to as a human embryo, and the distinction between terms such as zygote, pre-embryo, embryo, and fetus is downplayed. The document states that these terms have "identical ethical relevance." The authors go on to describe the Catholic belief about the status of the embryo, which from the first moment of its existence is "a new life," and "the life of a new human being" (pt. 1 par. 1). The embryo is also described as having dignity and "a right to the same respect that is due to the child already born and to every human person" (pt. 1...