I have been reading newspapers and blogs on the new IVF Bill all last week. It is surprising that although it is good that everybody gets to say what they feel, it is sad that many transfer simple opinions into belief status. I suppose if the round wheel does not fit the hub-cup of the car, then it might be actually possible to get a square wheel on forgetting that square is not anywhere in the philosophical form of wheel. I suppose that many people not finding anything wrong with the bill but feeling distressed that it does not fit their relativistic concepts of what they want to do in life irrespectively, now turn to squaring the circle and also finding new definitions of natural law.

Let me start with the latter. Natural law falls under an objective system of ethics. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the laws of nature, although the latter play an important part in the extraction of natural laws as a system of ethics. Natural law is the very epitome of human reason as extracted from the laws of nature but the main operative words are, indeed, human reason. It is therefore accessible to every human being irrespective of race, culture, gender or creed. I have seen and read many interpretations of natural law that would never get off the ground. The application of natural law also avoids instances in nature where the event is a contingency or exception/emergency rather than a regular event or a necessity in nature. No one draws up rules from natural law based on contingencies but only on necessities. Human beings take paracetamol when they have a headache or other aches. However this is a contingency, as human beings do not usually take paracetamol all the time during their life otherwise taking paracetamol would come to define their being and it would then be a necessity and would be part of their human nature! Also, natural law with regard to human affairs pertains to observing the laws of nature for human affairs, not for other animals. It is important for all those out there who are conjuring up new definitions of natural law to acquaint themselves with a basic book on ethics or philosophy, because it may surprise them that it could be much more disciplined and complicated than they could ever think. And if they think it is not a rational discipline in itself, then they can rest assured that the problem belongs not to the law itself but to their perception of it.

Some pundits have decided to go about circumventing the issues involved in the bill by claiming that human life does not begin at conception or fertilisation and blaming the bill’s so-called conservative conclusions on Conservatism (?), the Pope, Catholic encyclicals, the Church, Catholic Action, Opus Dei, whatever. These senseless attacks just underlie the undercurrents in the frame of mind of those who make these puerile accusations. That human life begins at fertilisation is a conclusion of embryology (the biological science of early human life – a branch of anatomy) that is attested to by all embryologists of any repute. I can say that they all attest that the zygote (or embryo in legal and common parlance) is the first cell of the human organism and not any other ordinary human cell. The species involved is Homo sapiens. I can mention some of these eminent embryologists and anatomists, such as K.L. Moore, W.J. Larsen, R.E. Jones, T.W. Sadler, F. Scott Gilbert, G. Rager, R. Boden-Heidrich, T. Cremer, K. Decher, H. Hepp, W. Jägger, W. Wickler and, last but not least, the people considered to be at the pinnacle of the world of embryology: Fabiola Müller and the dean of embryology worldwide, Prof. Ronan O’Rahilly.

The latter sits on the Terminologia Embryologica Committee (DNI) which standardises name-giving in human embryology. The last revision of Terminologia Embryologica took place in October 2010. It is the joint integer of the Federative International Committee for Anatomical Terminology (FICAT) and the member societies of the International Federation of Association of Anatomists (IFAA) aimed at realising the objectives of the General Assembly of the Federative World Congress of Anatomy held in Rio de Janiero in 1989. He is also quoted by the Human Anatomy Development Center of Washington DC and is a consultant to the Carnegie staging nomenclature of human embryological development (first eight weeks of human embryo). According to this scientific nomenclatura, Stage one (a, b and c) of human embryonic development is considered as the last three stages (12, 13, 14) of the 14-stage process of the process of human fertilisation, the end stage of which results in the formation of the human zygote. Carnegie Stage 1a is called Oocytus penetratus (ref. E2.0.1.2.0.0.7), stage 1b is called Ootidum (ref. E2.0.1.2.0.0.8) while stage 1c (ref. 2.0.1.2.0.0.8) is termed Zygoticum. Profs O’Rahilly in his scientific masterpiece Human Embryology and Teratology (Wiley-Liss, New York) states: “The zygote is characteristic of the last stage of fertilisation and is identified by the first cleavage spindle. It is a unicellular embryo and is a highly specialised cell. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity. RNA synthesis occurs early during pronuclear formation and is followed by DNA synthesis after fertilisation”.

Now if there are some who can find any other references from embryologists for the scientific establishment for the beginning of an individual being or organism of the species Homo sapiens, please let me know and I will buy them each a lollipop which they can suck to their heart’s content. I fact I would buy them a whole box of lollipops which they can suck to infinity! It seems that many relativists reason that, since scientific fact does not agree with what they want to do or believe, they set about inventing some subjectivist sophist arguments to suit their cause, or strive to redefine the world according to John Irving’s Garp, totally built on unreality and fantasy. Now if I want to objectively draw an ethical conclusion from these scientific facts outlined above, which are freely accessible to everyone – everyone who wants to see, that is – the obvious conclusion is to protect this early human life so as not to do harm to other human life. That is an objective conclusion of natural law based on what necessarily occurs in the laws of nature as regards human beings!

If any political party is thinking of short-sightedly heading in the direction of turning human reason on its head for short-term political gain, know that there will always be a long-term social, cultural, individual and ultimately political price to pay in real terms for such a misdirected short-term view. It is called political myopia and is best kept to self without forcing it down people’s throats for some unctuous, flattering pre-election exercise in political propaganda!