Science and life’s inviolability
Chris Barbara, from Doctors for Choice (May 6), attacks the claim that a fertilised embryo is a human person, saying this cannot be scientifically proved. He even states the opposite: “It would be more helpful to consider embryos for what they are: a precursor to a human person.”
Is it a ‘scientific fact’ that they are not a human person, such that one should feel no qualms about aborting them?
While it is an obvious (‘scientific’?) fact that embryos normally grow to behave as persons, there is no obvious ‘scientific’ marker of the point when personhood sets in. Personhood remains mysterious to ‘science’ but, in law and ethics, we give it great weight. For Barbara, too, the taking of personal life seems to be a red line.
Medical procedures, such as medication, are illicit and unethical if they risk ending a person’s life. They are approved only if either they are not a risk to human life or if the ending of human life is not their aim but a side effect and this only if the benefit outweighs the risk.
A woman who believes in the inviolability of personal life, but who does not object to contraception, might decide to take a morning-after pill as a contraceptive, while knowing that it could cause changes in the womb that stop implantation, risking aborting a fertilised embryo.
If pregnancy spells a devastating effect on her life, such an undesired side-effect could possibly be justified. But, surely, such risk to a person’s life cannot be justified as a routine, everyday practice.
A friend of mine recounted the bitter experience of having his father fatally run over. The driver apologised agonisingly, saying he was rushing his wife to hospital. Driving always carries some danger but how dire and extreme have your needs to be to justify risk to the life of other persons?
Another type of example is that of the driver who swerved to avoid a group, unfortunately fatally hitting one person in the process. His action was probably justified. But it would not be justified to throw a person in front of the car to make the driver swerve and not hit the group. Directly willing such a fatality to save others is not justified, even though it can be justified if it happens both as an indirect result and for a serious enough reason.
Unfortunately, Barbara’s argument gives no scientific assurance that an embryo does not have the mysterious, irrevocable quality that makes it a human person. So, ending the life of an embryo directly is like giving a medicine to directly end a life that, for all we know, may already be a person.
Nothing should stop us all joining forces to safeguard personal life from such risk. Let us, rather, all turn to supporting challenged mothers in positive ways, in deep solidarity and humility but massively and effectively.
Charles Pace – Birkirkara
Gozo’s rape
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. This picture says it all: the spirit of Gozo being choked by commercial interests. Allied to the crass stupidity of a government relaxing height restrictions, the lazy ineptitude of the architects, designing without even a nod to the local village vernacular, and the suspect oversight of the craven PA.
It’s time for the people to unite.
David Carrington – Sannat
Clear message
In both the Old and the New Testament, God spelt out clearly what the relationship between men and women should be.
“From the beginning He made them male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one” (Matthew 19.4).
God is truth and reason and can never act against Himself. He certainly cannot at the same time pronounce the above words and bless unions between two men or two women.
Jacqueline Calleja – Naxxar
Amid the fear
Amid the fear and life uncertainties we go through, where we do not know what will happen next, how consoling are the words of St Paisios of Mount Athos (1924-1994): “God loves us very much; He has us in mind in each and every moment and He protects us; we should know this and not be afraid of anything”. Like the apostles, let us pray to Christ: Lord, increase our faith! (Luke 17:5).
Fr Mario Attard, OFM Cap – Marsa
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