Michael Asciak, MP, doctor and supernumerary of Opus Dei, the ultra-conservative wing of Catholicism, writing in his capacity as chairman of the Bioethics Committee, declares authoritatively that: "The life of the human being (and personhood) starts at fertilisation" (November 9).
I don't really understand what he means by this statement. I have always assumed that personhood is a status that human beings possess as a function of their higher mental capacity, which translates into qualities such as self-awareness and self-determination.
This results in their ability to act by choice rather than reflex, to have aspirations and make plans for the future, to sustain interests and develop thought and to be swayed by emotions such as love, hatred, sorrow and revenge.
Since a newly-fertilised egg does not have a brain, let alone higher mental capacity. I find it inconceivable that it can be assumed to be a person and enjoy the legal and moral implications of this status. I would agree that a zygote has the potential to become a person but, in my dictionary, at least, potential can never mean actual. If it did, then every sperm and ovum would enjoy human rights because they all have the potential to become persons, if favourable circumstances were to prevail. And, by infinite regression, we could even arrive at the ludicrous argument that individual amino acids have rights as well!
Although it is very difficult to assess how many conceptions are lost through miscarriage (spontaneous abortion), since the majority normally occur during the first month of pregnancy and often pass undetected, conservative estimates place the figure between 20 per cent and 25 per cent. Berger, in The Developing Person Through The Lifespan, reports that fewer than a third of all conceptions survive to birth. Even if the lower estimate is assumed to be the correct one, equating these lost zygotes with persons would translate into loss of human life on a monumental scale. And, yet, there is absolutely no activism on the part of the medical profession to prevent this from happening. Furthermore, lost zygotes, when they are detected, do not normally receive standard ceremony.
It would appear that, intuitively at least, most people do not consider fertilised ova to be persons in their own right.
It would also be correct to state, I believe, that the great majority of people who are pro life (except the most die-hard of activists) would be hard pressed to support calls for the maximum penalty to be imposed on women who perpetrate abortion, preferring instead to depict these as hapless victims of society. Tellingly, no such concessions are normally made for bona fide murderers, unless these are juvenile or insane. And, yet, if zygotes were persons, abortion would equate with the premeditated murder and subsequent denial of the rights of a certain group of people and fit easily into the category of a hate crime, for which no mercy could be expected.
A little less self-righteousness and more compassion and understanding should, when discussing delicate issues of this nature, be the order of the day.