Adelaide proposals fail to respect human life

Before the debate on the proposed abortion referendum has even properly begun, we appear to be swamped by ever more complex questions. How should we regulate the area of assisted human reproduction? What about embryo experimentation? What about so-called therapeutic cloning, when a clone is permitted to grow to the stage where it can have cells or perhaps even body parts harvested which will benefit the clone's parent?

The Adelaide Hospital Society submission on assisted human reproduction suggests that embryo experimentation should be permitted until the embryo is 14 days old. What, precisely, differentiates a 15-day-old embryo or a 17-day-old embryo from a 14-day-old embryo?

The Adelaide Society also advocates the availability of genetic screening. This could be helpful to many parents to allow them to prepare for the arrival of a child with a genetic disease. However, it is much more likely to raise the question of whether a positive diagnosis should be the basis for deciding that such an individual should not be born.

What does aborting those who do not meet our standards of physical perfection say about our definition of humanity, and what message does it send to those who are disabled? It is a clichΘ to say that our ability to deal with such ethical dilemmas has not kept pace with the speed of technological innovation in the area of human reproduction. But while it is a clichΘ, it is not entirely accurate. Basic principles are still available to us which would help us through the maze, but they no longer command the same degree of public acceptance.

There is an intrinsic link between the acceptance of abortion as an unobjectionable choice in some or all cases of crisis pregnancy and the dilemmas which we now face regarding embryos. Some 40 years ago, there was consensus internationally that abortion was wrong because it involved the taking of innocent human life. That consensus has collapsed.

That is not to say that anyone who is pro-choice or even accepting of abortion as a legitimate option in very specific circumstances such as rape or incest automatically approves of embryo experimentation or cloning. However, if the principle is conceded that destruction of very early or even more developed human life in the womb is in some cases ethically justifiable, a Pandora's box is well and truly opened.

Abortion is a very difficult subject to discuss, because abstract principles, whether they come from an anti-abortion or feminist pro-choice position, bear little relationship to what goes through a woman's mind in a crisis pregnancy.

I doubt very much if many women choose abortion to signal their support for a feminist right-to-choose ideology. Equally, I doubt if many women choose to keep a baby because of some abstract theory of equal right to life. Women continue pregnancies when they feel they have the resources both emotional and material to do so. As a society, we should put major effort into ensuring that every possible support is available to all women at such a time, so that no woman has to feel that abortion is the least bad option.

So when I say that there is an intrinsic link between the acceptance of abortion as a moral good in certain circumstances and such questions as stem-cell research, this is not intended to point the finger at individual women who have had abortions. I could have been such a woman myself had my life circumstances been different.

No, I am talking about an ideological process which involved dehumanising early human life. Feminist ideology declared that unwanted pregnancy was the greatest obstacle to equality with men. Women should not only have access to contraception but be able to interrupt the process of pregnancy with fatal consequences for the small human being within them. A process of ignoring any rights that small human being might have was begun.

As an avid reader of feminist literature, I became increasingly disturbed at the similarity of language used to justify abortion and that used to justify the subjugation of women in patriarchal societies. Dependent, not fully human, a parasite with no ability to exist without the patronage of someone else - all these things which were once said about women and their relationship with men were being used to justify the destruction of early human life.

This is completely out of touch with how women react to pregnancy, wanted or unwanted. No woman I know has ever declared that she was carrying a foetus. Women say "I'm pregnant," and as the old joke goes, it is not possible to be a little bit pregnant. Or they say "I'm going to have a baby."

The only way the woman's-right-to-choose ideology could triumph was by ignoring the seamless nature of human development. Once you deny that human life begins at conception, assigning humanity at any point after that becomes entirely arbitrary.

The Adelaide Society's proposal to allow embryo experimentation until 14 days is morally flawed because there is no intrinsic difference between a 14-day-old embryo and a 14 1/2-day-old embryo.

The proposed abortion referendum proposes to reinstate and reinforce respect for human life, whether it is at a very early stage or is that of a grown woman in need of medical treatment. That principle is important and whether it accords with Catholic, Protestant or Hindu teaching is at best a side issue. It would be ironic if such a re-statement of basic principles were defeated because it appeared to open the way to everything from embryonic stem cell research to cloning.

Some people are uneasy that the proposed abortion referendum seems to define human life as beginning at implantation. It is my understanding that Article 40:3:3 currently protects unborn life from the moment of conception, and the proposed clause deals with one aspect - that of unborn life post-implantation. If this is also the Government's belief it should tell us.

It needs to reassure the public with concrete proposals which show how pre-implantation human life will be protected. Pandora's Box should not be left to the care of a permanent commission.

bobrien@irish-times.ie