The origins of life — as seen in embryo canisters rescued from Hurricane Katrina

A SENIOR fellow of the Westchester Institute in New York, Dr Maureen Condic, published a white paper in which, from her scientific vantage point as an embryologist, she pinpoints the very instant at which a human organism comes into existence.

As she points out, the “moment of conception” is no longer a mystery; it can be determined down to the millisecond.

But even granting that the human embryo is an organism, and that we can know precisely when this new organism comes into existence, many will still deny — based on what logic? — that the embryo is a person.

Consider the recovery of 1,400 embryos during Hurricane Katrina, including the embryo that was Noah Benton Markham who was born 16 months later.

If the officers had not recovered the canisters of liquid nitrogen, the toll of Katrina would have been 1,400 human beings higher… and Noah, sadly, would have perished before having the opportunity to meet his loving parents.

I can only contemplate at present the destinies of so many human beings, those yet to be born, those to be created in IVF labs specifically for research purposes, those to come into the world through cloning, many of whom will be subjected to the added degradation of being cloned through recourse to non-human eggs, those stored and frozen in suspended existential absurdity in IVF labs throughout the world.

Stella Little

Waterfall

Co Cork