The Right to Life

Professional Mother,

Given the heat it has drawn, the abortion debate has erroneously been depicted as a battle drawn between the “conservative patriarchal” Church and “progressive feminist” thinkers.

And so as not to be swayed by any of these two schools of thought, let us, for once, put our passions, emotions and prejudices aside and discuss this contentious issue from an angle devoid of religious connotations.

There is no contradiction on the universally accepted fact that a human being is the subject of inalienable rights; and that no right is more fundamental than the right to life itself. This right to life is inviolable from the beginning of the process of conception to its natural death.

As it were, human existence does not belong to society nor does it belong to public authority so that the right to life for some people will be recognised and not for others. Rather, as citizens of this country, we have the sole duty to guard with utmost care and promote all human life.

And because the right to life demands recognition, the Constitution of this country has to provide clearly and definitively a base for the protection and sustenance of the right to life without inserting clauses that would antagonise the most fundamental rights.

In this light, the short range result of an undefined Clause on The Right to Life or the inclusion of clauses that contradict life in the Constitution would, as sure as night follows day, be legislation of abortion and its associated vices. Once people subordinate life in the early stages of its development to any other values; they thereby forfeit any future appeal to a legal system that can logically protect human life at any other point.

This means that the acceptance of abortion will open, in principle, the right to terminate human life at the end as well as at any point in between when that life is perceived to be burdensome or unwanted. Thus before long, we will have to grapple with demands for legalised euthanasia. The vices of abortion and euthanasia are directly linked to other heinous abuses to life which include infanticide, paedophilia and necrophilia.

Those who hold the reigns of government therefore, should not forget that it is the duty of public authority, by appropriate laws and sanctions, to defend the lives of the innocent. And this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves.

Now, to accept the fact that after fertilisation has taken place a new human being has come into being is no longer a matter of tests or of opinion. This is because the human nature of the human being from conception to old age is no more a metaphysical contention but rather plain experimented scientific evidence.

Modern molecular biology teaches us that all living organisms begin with living and not dead cells. That a new human life, which is a much later outcome, is the result of the culmination of two living and healthy cells – the ovum and the sperm.

Further, science elaborates that from the moment that the ovum is fertilised, a new and unique human life is begun. Contained in each cell are the distinct blueprints for the genetic heritage as well as future essential characteristics of the new human being, which include sex, intellectual potentials, facts of character and temperament.

Logically, this new life would never be made human if it were not human already. Differently put: can a dead cell form a live zygote or foetus?

Science has also shown univocally that there does not exist any pre-human stage of the embryo in the mother’s body. From the moment of fertilisation on, only one and the same individual develops. It is not as if at a certain point in time a change is effected as to make the organism pass from animality to humanity.

In the case of test tube babies, after the sperm and the egg have been harvested and fused on a Petri dish, there is nothing else added to give the baby life, except to transfer him to the uterine walls of its foster mother. This gives the best technical answer, with no theoretical consideration, that the life of that baby began at the moment of the fusion of the sperm and ovum and not with the implantation inside its surrogate mother.

The afore-mentioned affirmations do not stem from theological or ideological pre-conceptions. It is a question of realities that cannot be explained in any way other than science.

With these very elementary scientific facts, would we still want to wish-think that the fertilised ovum is a non-entity until after nine months? Or that it is a mere excrescence of the body of the mother? Or until someone proclaims that it is a living being? Or simply accept that the humanness of a person is less human because some people are unable to recognise the humanness at the very first nuance?

It is true that some circumstances which may face a pregnant woman sometimes explain why people resort to abortion. But even then another fact remains that abortion never puts an end to social distress. It only adds to the tragedy.

As regards cases where abortion is the only way of saving the mothers health, let it be known that today medical opinion is virtually unanimous that cases where an abortion is necessary to save the mother’s life are fortunately so rare that their existence is becoming merely theoretical. In any case, as practitioners called to serve and save life, they would be expected to work towards saving the lives of both the mother and the child.

So when we see men and women who, by their very training and oath are supposed to protect human life, rooting for abortion, we should be wary; very wary.

The author is a professional mother

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this section do not necessarily represent the opinions of CISA.