Living embryos — why size matters from the start

YOUR columnist Steven King (Irish Examiner, November 22) criticised the Catholic Church’s stand on embryo experiments.

The Church informs itself on issues such as this by consulting top-class, reputable professionals in the field of biology. It then judges in the light of the moral law transmitted by God in the Ten Commandments, in this case the injunction not to kill.

That human life begins at the union of a sperm with an ovum is a biological fact, as has been known for well over 60 years. As soon as the zygote is formed, the generation of a new, unique human is complete. I emphasise complete because every characteristic of the new person, down to their fingerprints, is encoded in this cell.