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Summary
In the contemporary discussions on the status of the human embryo several participants in the debate refer to concepts or discussions with a rich history. After a short survey of these historical discussions, the author examines the methodological question to what extent we can use these concepts from history and tradition as an argument in a contemporary discussion. Although we have to beware of Hinein-interpretierung of the sometimes very heterogeneous and contextual traditions, it is perhaps possible to record some general trends and insights in those traditions, like the high appreciation of unborn human life by the christian traditions, or the nuancing distinction according to the developmental stage of the embryo. Because of the great danger to use these insights as a legitimization, it is more clarifying for the contemporary debate to explicitate the presuppositions of the historical discussions and to examine their influence on the contemporary discussion. On the one hand we can recognize in the animation tradition a tension between a dualistic and a hylemorphistic anthropology. This tension determined to a large extent the importance of the biological development of the embryo in the argumentation of the theories of the delayed and the immediate animation. On the other hand the whole animation tradition is permeated by a substantialistic essentialism: in the philosophical-anthropological as well as in the specific moral issues one thinks to find the unquestionable truth about the embryo in “the” moment when the embryo becomes “really” human. Both these presuppositions have a determining influence also on the contemporary discussion on the status of the human embryo.