Recently, many have been advocating the licensing and distribution of the morning-after pill, to the point of claiming, even through a judicial protest filed in court, that women have a right to it.
Certain scientific findings bear repeating and relevant ethical implications discussed.
Firstly, at fertilisation, a highly complex cascade of biological processes is triggered and a new unit emerges, genetically distinct from both the mother and the father (geneticist Angelo Serra, Milan). This happens before implantation.
There is abundant scientific evidence that, after the sperm enters the ovum, there is the start of a new entity with a different set of chromosomes. This is a human being with potential and not merely a potential human being.
When we say that the human individual’s life starts at conception, we mean that the fertilised egg functions in a different way to how it operated before sperm entry. The new individual’s development proceeds without interruption. There is a continuum of growth and development through embryogenesis, foetal growth, infant growth, adolescence and adulthood. The continuum of life is one process, starting with fertilisation, ending when the individual dies.
Some argue that the embryo is not yet human. Neurobiologist Maureen Condic (University of Utah) counters: “Linking human status to the nature of developing embryos is neither subjective nor open to personal opinion. Human embryos are living human beings, precisely because they possess the single defining feature of human life that is lost in the moment of death – the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells”.
Human beings alone among visible beings are capable of making free decisions, even against their own interests
Secondly, the morning-after pill can only rightly be termed an ‘emergency contraceptive’ where conception has not yet occurred and can still be prevented. If, by contrast, conception has already taken place, then the morning-after pill (or any substitute, like overdosing on certain pills) is abortive and so wrong. Calling it an ‘emergency contraceptive’ in this latter case is, to say the least, unquestionably misleading.
Thirdly, the life of every human being, including the embryo, needs to be respected. Why? Because, among other things, human beings alone among visible beings are capable of making free decisions, even against their own interests. They are moral agents and to take the life of a moral agent is utterly heinous.
It is ethically unjustifiable to kill an adult or a child, to abort the human foetus or to expose a newly-conceived human embryo to danger (within the womb or by freezing it). If a human embryo already exists, then we are ethically bound to respect its dignity. This very tiny human life already has the potential to become a fully grown member of society.
To terminate a life at whatever stage of development is ethically unacceptable in a civilised society.
Twenty-one Maltese experts from various fields recently wrote: “The right to life and to physical integrity of every human being from conception to natural death must be respected. The wilful and deliberate discarding or destruction of the human embryo, the freezing of supernumerary embryos, their use for basic scientific research and their exposure to serious risk of death or physical harm are ethically unacceptable.”
The use of the morning-after pill may, precisely, be putting embryos at mortal risk. It is ethically unacceptable.
The licensing and distribution of the morning-after pill that could be used to stop implantation in the womb would be the thin edge of the wedge towards legalising the abortion of a human being with potential. It would be a first step.
The Maltese bishops affirmed their respect for the role and dignity of women while also insisting that human dignity be respected beginning with conception. Recalling that the pill in question is abortive in many cases, they took the view that its legalisation should not be tied to women’s rights. The core issue, the bishops wisely observed, ultimately concerns “the moral fibre of society”.
The defence of life from conception to natural death is tied to the core ethical values we need to ensure are preserved, indeed strengthened. We need to defend life from the very beginning to the very end.
Fr Soler is a member of the Society of Jesus.