Right to academic freedom is far below right to life

IN support of their case for destructive research on human embryos, Dr Tom Moore and Prof Tom Cotter make use of what they call ethical pragmatism.

This reminded me of a joke going the rounds when I was a young philosophy student at UCC. If we lost money, the joke went, we should pray that it wouldn’t be found by an ethicist as the ethicist would easily come up with a good reason for keeping it.

No doubt a slur on our learned and upright teachers but with the advent of ethical pragmatism perhaps no longer a joke. Of course, being human, we often tried to come up with a satisfactory justification for a morally problematic course of action, but we called this rationalisation. Ethical pragmatism certainly has a more impressive ring to it.

Apart from the hope of finding cures, a hope which everybody shares, Dr Moore and Prof Cotter seem to me to base their case on three main points:

1. Lack of public unease in relation to abortion, vaccine production from aborted foetuses, excess embryo production for IVF, etc. This public acceptance is incomprehensible to me. However, it is hardly a justifying reason for further destruction of embryos. Is it being suggested that because several wrongs are tolerated, then another wrong can be called right?

2. The argument from evolution. At least Dr Moore and Prof Cotter did not engage in the usual ploy of denying that the embryo is a human being, but to get around this difficulty they chose to devalue the whole human race by suggesting that human beings are nothing more than animals. Therefore, there is no moral distinction between experimenting on apes and on people. Acceptance of this notion would spell the end of ethics as it has always been understood and would introduce an era of uncontrolled pragmatism. Perhaps we are already half-way there.

3. The more developed supersedes the less developed. This confuses me. In modern times it is generally held in civilised societies that the early — and very vulnerable — stages of human life deserve the greatest protection.

Pregnant women are constantly being advised to avoid smoking and drinking and to do nothing that might harm their babies. The “rights of the child” is a huge media preoccupation (admittedly, so long as the child is lucky enough to be born). Now we are being told it is morally courageous to kill human life at the most vulnerable stage of all so that people with more developed brains can benefit. Dr Moore and Prof Cotter appear to me to be disciples of the queen of ethical pragmatism, Baroness Warnock. She opened the door to embryo destruction in England and of late she is making the news again saying that she hopes that soon people will be “licensed to put others down” if they are unable to look after themselves. For me, however, two fundamental principles should be at the foundation of every society that calls itself human:

* The taking of innocent human life should always be forbidden except in the case of necessary self-defence against an insane aggressor.

* No human being should be used for experimental purposes without his/her express permission.

If the implementation of these principles requires the limiting of academic freedom, then so be it. The right to academic freedom ranks very far below the right to life.

Oliver Broderick

Montserrat House

Ashe Street

Youghal

Co Cork