When is a human being a human being?

The Editor: R Jones (Newsday, 24 January, 2003 “A dozen chickens, please”) does not seem to realise that with modern methods of production the eggs sold in the groceries are not fertilised and are therefore not chickens.

However, a fertilised egg is certainly a chicken, just as a tadpole is a frog and a mosquito larva is a mosquito, they are simply at different stages of development.  We can see a tadpole developing continuously until it assumes the mature form and we call it a frog; this development can be traced back in a continuous line until we come to its beginning as a fertilised ovum (ovum is the Latin word for egg). If the fertilised egg is not a frog, when does it become a frog?  Is it only when it reaches the mature stage?

A human being is called different names at different stages of his/her development: an infant, a baby, a toddler, a child, an adolescent, teenager, a man/woman.  Again we can work backwards tracing the different stages of development during which he/she is given different names, but at every stage he/she is still the same human being until we come to his/her beginning as a fertilised human egg.  If the fertilised egg is not a human being, at what stage in its development does it become a human being?  Is it when it is born?
It can be proved scientifically that the fertilised egg of a frog is a frog, of a mosquito is a mosquito, of a human being is a human being. 

Here is the proof: The egg and the sperm are human, but only potential human beings in that they each carry only half the full content of the 23 pairs of chromosomes characteristic of the human individual. They have an affinity for each other. When the egg and sperm unite in fertilisation, the chromosomes of each complement those of the other to make up the 23 pairs of chromosomes that then carry the full biological inheritance of the new human being. The potential in the egg and sperm is now actualised, and the new human being has been conceived. From now on, cell division preserves intact the 23 pairs of chromosomes which determine the individual and unique characteristics of the new human being for the rest of his/her life.

The modern techniques of DNA analysis serve to confirm the above at the molecular level. The uniqueness of the new individual is determined at conception. Thenceforward, he/she can be identified by his/her “DNA sequence”.  The DNA that can so positively distinguish one person from another, cannot distinguish between the person who is adult from his/her foetus. That is because they are both the same individual human being, only at different stages of development. The new human being that began to exist at conception will live until he/she dies. Aspire’s explicit denial that a human zygote is a human being cannot alter the scientifically established fact that a fertilised human egg is a human being. A woman may claim to have choice and authority over her own body, but she has no authority over her unborn baby because he/she has a life independent of her, though he/she depends on her totally for his/her nurture.

D Ross says also that “Mother Nature aborts more than 80 per cent of fertilised eggs.” In the case of spontaneous abortion, called miscarriage, the fertilized ovum, at whatever stage, is so defective that it is not viable and therefore dies a natural death, just as we fall ill and die. It is not murdered. In certain cases, when a doctor decides that the life of the mother requires that the foetus be aborted, such an abortion is not considered to be unlawful in civil law. However, since such an abortion consists in the deliberate killing of an innocent human being, it cannot be considered to be in keeping with the moral law.  The end does not justify the means; we cannot do evil that good may result, and the deliberate killing of an innocent human being is an immoral act. This we must hold in order to be consistent with our moral principles.

We understand the dilemma in which the doctor is placed, we are not condemning him as immoral, assuming that he is acting in good faith, but we have to be objective. When the life of the mother is not threatened the life of only one human being is involved, that of the baby, and no circumstances can justify the taking of his/her life. The remedy consists in improving the social condition of the mother, and that is what Aspire should be campaigning for. If Aspire has sufficient influence to change the abortion law, those responsible should know exactly what they are doing: that they are legalising the massacre of innocents.

Arthur Lai Fook, CSSp
St Mary’s College