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.