Distinguishing between human and human being
TTHE EDITOR, Sir:
HE ABORTION debate has been noteworthy for the almost complete absence from the debate of biomedical data, and, disappointingly, of those knowledgeable in that field. As a result, the protagonists have been divided between moralists and church people on one side, and, on the other, those concerned for the victims of rape and for girls and women often forced into dangerous back-street abortions.
Biomedical research into human conception, starting from some 60 years ago, has been extensive. The complexity of that process is immense, with findings resulting in controversial. However, one datum is widely accepted, though the numbers proposed stretch from 10-20 to 70-80 per cent. The numbers are of the human embryos lost (‘wasted’) between fertilisation in the Fallopian tubes (where a male sperm penetrates the egg coming from the ovary) and implantation in the uterus (where foetal development occurs). Speaking now not of a single woman, but of the many women surveyed, lost embryos are simply passed out in their next menses.
This loss of embryos suggests that the notion of souls inserted by special divine action at the moment of conception is ill considered. No reasoned argument has been given for it. It is an assumption that does not make sense. One humourist has asked about Heaven being ‘peopled’ with billions of embryos with souls!
The church people who rail against repeal of the articles (7273 of the Offences Against the Person Act) that ban abortion appear to disregard the straightforward distinction between human and human being.
The cell swabbed from inside a human cheek is human. It has 46 chromosomes. It can be used for in-vitro fertilisation to become a human embryo. It is not yet, however, a human BEING any more than a pear seed is a pear tree. No matter the difference in value (because of potential) between pear seed and human embryo, a human embryo is human, but at embryo stage, not at human being stage. It is far from a minimal level of humanity – the ability to survive outside the womb that stems from months of development. (Which is not, therefore, to sanction abortion at any time up to that point.)
My hope is that Minister Tufton will continue to push as bravely for the closure of the decades-long and inconclusive debate on abortion as he has done in raising it. COLLETTE CAMPBELL