Via the Christianity Today
weblog, I learn that the head of the Australian Anglican Church, which is
relatively conservative, takes an
intermediate position on abortion which I am surprised is not more common: that
abortion is permissible very early (the first two weeks) but not later.
...
"Given that twinning can occur up to the 14th day of this process, it is
not logically possible to talk of the conception of a unique human
individual prior to the completion of this process.
"Each of us can say that we came to be in the sense that we were each
conceived, as a potential human individual, 14 days after the
fertilisation of an ovum, not before." He said the natural 60 per cent
wastage of ova during IVF procedures need not be considered the killing
of conceived human individuals.
"We do not have some 70,000 frozen people on ice at various places
around Australia," he said.
Embryo experimentation and stem cell research were also morally
acceptable.
"If there is a utilitarian argument for the possible benefit to mankind
of experimentation on embryos, this could be tolerated in a controlled
way under licence up until the 14th day in a way that after the 14th day
it would not," he said.
"Stem cell research becomes also thinkable, for stem cells are harvested
well within the 14th day period."
Life does not begin when sperm meets egg, but 14 days after, according
to the head of the Anglican Church in Australia.
The twinning argument is an interesting one I hadn't thought of. Roman Catholics and
Evangelicals cannot say that the human soul is created at the time of conception, I
would think, since that would require two souls in one body (the one cell), or that one
soul split in two, which seems odd. The article also mentions the paradoxes of cloning--
and notes that the definition of life beginning when sperm meets egg would exclude
To return to Eric Rasmusen's weblog, click
http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/0.rasmusen.htm.