Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1528951
10 OPINION maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 6 NOVEMBER 2024 There is no consensus about the ethical and juridical value of an embryo THE consequences of recent advances in medical science and biological technology are changing our understanding of personhood, human life and human beings. We refer to the unborn, that is, the em- bryo, until the end of the sec- ond month of pregnancy. Af- ter the beginning of the third month, we refer to the unborn as the foetus. Both are at the centre of all recent abortion discussions in the local media. It's almost impossible to sep- arate our acknowledgments in the scientific field from our humanistic, moral and reli- gious beliefs. From an undisputed biologi- cal point of view, we know that human beings begin with two single cells: the spermatozoa and the egg, that is, the male and female gametes. These two cells join together dur- ing the fertilisation process, at the end of which they form a single cell, called a zygote, which has its own complete set of chromosomes, forming a unique genetic patrimony. Immediately after, the zy- gote begins to divide into two, then four, and then eight, and soon it will arrive at a group of cells using a mechanism called mitosis, until it gives origin to a group of cells sim- ilar in appearance to grapes, named morula. Each of these cells is equiv- alent to the others, so if the cells were separated, they could develop independently. During the first days and un- til the second week, the term 'pre-embryo' rather than em- bryo is used, since before ni- dation we have an entity that is not an embryo yet, namely because it lacks two funda- mental characteristics, unity and unicity, that would trans- form it into an individual. Because of the absence of these characteristics and be- cause of the reproductive mechanism of the human spe- cies in itself, the existence of this creature is very fragile and uncertain, and it is not unusual that pregnancies fail before nidation without the women acknowledging that they were even pregnant. Due to the flimsy subsist- ence of these creatures, some laws provide the pre-embryo with a legal treatment that is different and more unprotect- ed than the one established for the embryo. The main discussion should not be about when human life begins, even though it is almost consensual, at least in biological terms, that it begins when fecundation is completed. Rather, it should be when we recognise in that human life the dignity attrib- uted to each human person and, therefore, grant it hu- man rights that it should be respected. There is no consensus about the ethical and juridical value of an embryo. On one side of the dispute (pro-choice), we have those sustaining that the status of the embryo should be no different from that of any other human tissue, in other words, mere property, a possible object of any kind of use, only dependent on the owner's consent. They hold that, to recognise rights and some kind of dignity for a creature, we should demand self-consciousness. This im- plies that the lives of senile people, people in stages of co- ma, embryos, and even little infants are not of real value since each one of them lacks an appropriate degree of brain function. Evidently, in his line of ar- gumentation, abortion should not be prohibited since, at the time it is usually performed, embryos have not yet achieved any consciousness. On the opposite side, there are those (pro-life) who con- sider the embryo not only a human life but also a hu- man person, just like the al- ready-born. This perspective forbids any kind of use of the embryo, which is considered an instrumentalisation of the human person, as censured by Kantian philosophy. Therefore, the embryo ought to be granted the entire list of human rights, just as a hu- man-born person, and its de- struction should be qualified as homicide. Similar to this position is the one that, al- though denying the embryo the qualification of a person, achieves the same result by assuring it absolute protec- tion in the name of ontolog- ical solidarity between human beings. Is there any half-way house between these two extreme views? The common ground for both views is the denial to the embryo of the respect accord- ed to actual persons, but the proposal that it deserves more respect than the one accorded to human tissues carries judi- cial weight for the reason that it has the potential to become a person. Developing human life is sa- cred even before it conquers the status of personhood, and it is imperative to consider the objective value of human life from its very beginning, even before the acquisition of rights and interests. To date, under our Constitu- tion, only persons can be the subject of fundamental rights. In other words, the life of the unborn, though recognised as a constitutional value that Abortion: a new legal perspective Mark Said is a veteran lawyer Mark Said