No one can say when exactly a foetus becomes a person
By this I understand him to say he believes the single cell, called the zygote, is a full human person.
If this is granted, then of course there can be no argument — the zygote, as a person, is entitled to the same moral status and the same full protection of the law as a born baby.
I would suggest that the following is a more reasonable set of value judgments, based on all we currently know of the development of the human foetus and the many unfortunate complications that can ensue:
1. That it is not, and never will be, possible to say with absolute precision when a foetus becomes a person — bear in mind, for example, that fertilisation takes about 24 hours to be completed, so is personhood achieved sometime during the 20 minutes it takes the sperm to enter the ovum or only at the very end when the nucleus of the new cell is formed?
2. In a normal pregnancy, the growing baby is certainly a person before it’s born, but how soon before is difficult to say.
3. It is reasonable to claim that a certain level of brain development (not necessarily full development) is a necessary minimum for personhood to be achieved — otherwise we would have the extraordinary claim that an anencephalic (no-brain) foetus is a person.
Evolution shows us that all of life is a continuum, not just human life.
As Prof Reville’s UCC confreres point out, it is not possible arbitrarily to choose a point in the past when a particular one of our ape-like ancestors could be called the ‘first human’.
Similarly, it is not possible to choose an arbitrary point in the present, namely, the instant of fertilisation, to assign full humanity because there is no such instant — there is a process.
Evolution shows conclusively that fixity of species is a myth — it makes no sense to talk of a human essence as Prof Reville does. The continuum argument can, therefore, only be legitimately used to set time boundaries.
The rational position, I submit, is the following: the human zygote, created in a voluntary loving relationship, in vivo or in vitro, must be assigned a significant moral status.
The zygote implanted in utero should be assigned a higher moral status.
The developing foetus has a higher moral status; the sentient foetus with the ability to feel pain has a higher moral status; the baby in utero which is viable independent of its mother, the baby in utero whose brain is fully developed and the born baby has the same moral status as any other human person.
This is the position that most of us actually adopt in practice. You do not hear a pregnant woman who has two children say she has three children.
The grief reaction of parents to a miscarriage is largely and rightly determined by the length of the pregnancy.
Women lose fertilised ova quite regularly without even being personally aware of it. On the other hand, a late miscarriage is rightly treated as a death in the family. Based on these principles we can, and should, have the moral courage to legislate for and control HESCR.
The scientific value of any research can then be adjudged on its merits.
Based on these same principles we should also have the moral courage to legislate the circumstances in which terminations are lawful.
There are at least three such clear-cut circumstances:
* When the life of the mother is endangered (however that is interpreted).
* When a woman or teenage child is raped and conception results.
* When a child becomes pregnant as a result of incest.
The UCC decision is to be welcomed although I won’t hold my breath in anticipation of quick legislative action since our hypocrisy meter is stuck on ‘high’.
Con Hayes
Tower
Blarney
Co Cork
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