Story of human life begins at moment of conception

IN HIS letter (November 17), Con Hayes argues that a full human person is not present until long after the early embryo stage in human development and it is therefore ethically permissible to kill the human embryo to further biomedical research.

I disagree entirely. To answer the question as to when human life begins, we must consult biology, the science of life.

Biology clearly tells us full human life begins at conception with the formation of a genetically complete, self-directing human entity, the embryo.

From this starting point, the human life history unfolds as a continuum — embryo-foetus-baby-child-adult-elderly person — and ending in death. Each point on the continuum is fully human with the full human properties appropriate to its stage of development.

To deliberately kill the embryo is therefore a violation of human rights

Mr Hayes uses the concept of attainment of personhood as an indicator of when deliberate killing would be ethically unacceptable.

Personhood is not a helpful concept and only serves to confuse. Experience shows that using this concept leads to widespread use of abortion as contraception as, for example, in Britain.

But use of this concept can also lead to more alarming conclusions.

There is widespread disagreement as to when full human personhood is attained. Using some definitions of this status, it can be quite difficult to illustrate that personhood is attained before about the age of three months.

The well-known Princeton University philosopher Peter Singer argues that personhood is characterised by self-awareness and rationality and the ability to see oneself existing over time.

He goes on to conclude that under some circumstances it can be morally permissible to kill a baby born with a severe defect because the baby lacks these characteristics of personhood and is no more a person than the foetus who can be legally aborted.

I wrote my letter, published on November 1, in the context of the ethics of human embryonic stem cell research (HESCR).

In order to obtain human embryonic stem cells for research it is necessary to kill the human embryo which, of course, I find to be ethically repugnant and therefore I am opposed to HESCR.

But ethics aside, there is no longer any scientific need for HESCR. It has been promoted as a quick, reliable way to discover cures for a variety of human diseases, although little progress has been made to date.

However, a recent scientific breakthrough makes it possible to generate human stem cells equally as good as embryonic stem cells for discovering cures for disease but which carry no negative ethical problems.

These new stem cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC) and are made by genetically reprogramming ordinary adult cells, eg, skin cells, thereby transforming them into stem cells.

The future therefore lies with IPSC. Nobody likes killing embryos. Even those who would allow it, like Mr Hayes, do so with reluctance, declaring that the embryo has “significant moral value”. Now that IPSCs have arrived, it is time for Mr Hayes and those who think like him to breathe some real meaning into that phrase.

Prof William Reville

Biochemistry Department

UCC