Womb - or tomb? (Part 3).

In this third of four posts on the sensitive, emotional, but topical subject of abortion, we look at the beginning of life - a unique and individual life. This particular post was first published on August 28th, 2014. It has not been edited.

Life never begins!  It is only transmitted.  Since the creation of the first man, when Almighty God "... breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ..." (Gen.2:7), living beings come only from other living beings.  This is a simple fact, recognised by eminent biologists, but ignored by the so-called 'pro-choice' brigade.

The formation of a new human being is contained in the male sperm, and the female egg, and is produced through the fusion of these two gametes (to use a medical, scientific, term!).  What happens is that when the egg is fertilised by the sperm, a new cell (zygote) is produced with a genetic code that is not only distinct from those of the gametes whose fusion brought it into being, but is also totally unique!

The journey of this zygote takes it down the Fallopian tubes of the still-unaware mother, towards the uterus.  Already, the process of cell multiplication (mitosis) is well under way. However, after that first instant of conception, when the egg was fertilised, there is no stage at all at which this embryonic human being receives any new, or essential, genetic contribution in order for it to be what it is!  There can be no doubt about it, from a scientific, biological, perspective - from the moment of fertilisation, we already have a new human life.  This is most definitely not merely a part of the body of the mother.  It is most certainly not some kind of alien parasite.  As Dr Jerome Lejeune, the renowned French geneticist, and the discoverer of the cause of Down's Syndrome (which condition, according to Richard Dawkins, ought to lead to an abortion!) summarised the situation succinctly when he wrote: "As soon as he has been conceived, a man is a man."

Again, I would emphasise that this new human being is distinct from its mother.  In biological, and genetic, terms, it is not the mother who transforms her cells into the cells of a new being.  It is the embryo itself that undertakes, in a veritable explosion of vitality, this 'self-construction' within the habitat of the womb. 

How regretful that, for so many millions, that very womb has become, and becomes, a temporary tomb!