I feel nothing but sympathy for couples trying to conceive. Treating such couples is therapeutic medicine, like an appendectomy.

Freezing of embryos, however, is not medical therapy for the two ‘patients’ – mother and father. Embryos are nascent human beings, otherwise no one would encourage their development and care for them all the way to birth – the happy outcome of IVF.

IVF-produced embryos (as naturally formed ones) may die a natural death before or after implantation. This does not reduce their worth – babies and the elderly may also die but no one recommends harming them.

About 30% of frozen embryos die upon thawing. So is this justified to enhance the success of IVF cycles? I think not. Harming one can never be justified to reduce the hurt of others: the end does not justify the means.

Unattractive people may feel hard done by not getting as healthy a sex life as Taylor Swift. Is it OK for that person to go through plastic surgery or hair transplants to increase his success rate? Sure, why not. Is it equally OK for them to buy a sex slave to reach that goal? Of course not. Mistreating slaves is not acceptable however much Mr Ugly may need sexual gratification. Embryos, like these vulnerable women, cannot choose not to be frozen or destroyed, and therefore need protection.

In some senses embryo freezing is worse than certain abortions. In cases of rape, the argument that she was abused and it is her body may hold some water (even if the embryo needs protection too). In embryo freezing there is the manipulation of a human life other than that of the ‘patients’ for their sole benefit.

Our society is getting to a point where the vulnerable are abused for the benefit of the richer or voting population; it is a sad, dangerous place. These points come from my expertise in cell biology, embryology and medicine not my faith or any philosophy.

What about life not starting at conception? Ask any biologist in a lab studying life itself when the life of the chicken or a frog starts and they will not mention anything about 14-day windows (individual ‘froghood’) or brain formation because they do not have any axes to grind.

The discussions about human personhood and individuality are utilitarian ones meant to justify therapeutics or experimentation with human embryos. Another argument is that of the continuum – from gametes to embryo to foetus – as if there is no change at all. This is like saying that children are continuations of their parents and can be knocked off with impunity because one has just slightly disrupted the Lion King’s circle of life.

Our society is getting to a point where the vulnerable are abused for the benefit of the richer or voting population;it is a sad,dangerous place

Eggs (oocytes) and sperm each have only half the blueprint to make an organism; adding them together gives the whole. In fact, eggs and sperm have a limit, whilst fertilised embryos in the right environment have become like each of us. The development to a baby and adult occurs under the DNA guidance of the fertilised embryo itself from the moment of conception.

It already ‘knows’ in its DNA what colours its eyes and hair will be, etc. Some do not like this very obvious truth and talk about philosophical arguments of personhood – that an individual human life only cannot become two at around 14 days post conception (allowing all kinds of experimentation in those early days). So are twins not as worthy as singletons?

What about conjoined twins who split after this philosophical time point? Are they one human and can we kill one?

People can easily gloss over things they do not understand. Many who see a Ferrari stripped of its racing red body see a lump of metal and maybe even sell it off as scrap. Experts see the engine (the oocyte) and the chassis and transmission (the sperm) as the whole – a Ferrari in all its glory. They disregard the outer cover knowing what lies inside, and do their best to preserve it.

I understand and see this beauty, the DNA – we cannot see the perfect model figure or the gorgeous auburn hair or the first-class musician or the neurosurgeon so we often disregard it – it is however a human, with all its DNA, just like a Ferrari.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook what looks like a weird net of wires and poles. It looked like some old Deutche Welle station transmitter-rubbish. My friend is an astrophysicist and this was a state-of-the-art astronomical instrument.

Pity if some Redneck would come and tear it down, not seeing the beauty inside.

Pierre Schembri-Wismayer is a senior lecturer at the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta.