Kenneth Cassar (January 16) mistakenly assumes that the right to life of a human being, which is protected by our constitution, should not pertain to the physical body but should be accorded to the time the foetus acquires consciousness when the developing brain is around the 24th to the 28th week of gestation.
This is an old argument that we can find widely discussed in the British parliament when Lady Mary Warnock put forward her notorious report allowing for the terminations of pregnancy up till the 24th week of gestation. Maybe he could tell us how he intends to identify this point in time when the foetus develops consciousness?
Others like Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse take this argument even further saying that consciousness is not enough to protect the foetus but this should be extended to self-consciousness, the time when we are aware that we are aware. In human beings, this occurs between two to three years of age of the child. In effect, they are suggesting infanticide.
The human mind is not a physical attribute, like the brain, but incorporates attributes of the spirit and, therefore, enters the unknown parameters of the soul and metaphysics. A spirit is immeasurably immaterial and that leaves us empirically only with the physical attribute of the body, which we can measure.
Since in science we only have the empirical evidence of the human body to identify physically and deal with, that is where we have to provide legal protection. The science of embryology tells us clearly that the human being begins at conception, that is fertilisation, and, because it is a member of the human species, reason tells us that it should be afforded protection.
Anyone in his right reason cares about what happens to other human beings. It is not the DNA, which is just a chemical, that determines protection but the DNA within the constantly changing and active, self-moving developing human organism, in which DNA remains a constant fixture as the human being develops and which DNA ties the different time processes of development to each other.
In my long experience as a physician, I have been entrusted with the life of human beings who have no consciousness and one never proceeds to terminate that life but, rather, takes care of it until consciousness is returned. Human beings in a coma, induced or otherwise, human beings under general anaesthesia, human beings who are asleep or sedated, even human beings born without a brain remain members of the species Homo sapiens and reason tells us that they should be protected.
Cassar even makes the wrong assertion that the DNA of identical twins is the same, conveniently ignoring the fact that, although the DNA structure is the same, the functioning expression of this DNA as determined by the acquired different epigenetics of both identical twins means that the DNA in both twins is expressed very differently.
An individual human being of species Homo sapiens is an individual entity of a species that is, by its very nature, rational and, therefore, merits the terminology of a person, whether that individual exhibits that rationality or consciousness all the time or not as every one of us actually does during different periods of our life.
To castigate a religious belief which is based on a scientific fact shows the ridiculous bellicosity of those who rubbish both science and religion, because the Church’s current position is a position based on current scientific fact not myth. Science tells us that human life begins at fertilisation, so the moral reason tells us that that life must be protected from that time.
When the science of Aristotle was wrong, so was the moral reasoning of Thomas Aquinas but it was always in line with the ‘right’ science of the time, which happened to be wrong.
Today, the logos knows differently and, because it has confirmed the facts, so does the moral reason of the Church, because, ultimately, faith and reason support each other.
Michael Asciak is a senior lecturer in health science.