Madam, - Prof David McConnell mis-states the teaching of the Catholic Church on the personhood of the human unborn (Opinion, November 25th). While the Church leans strongly to the position that the fertilised ovum is a human person, she has not committed herself expressly to that position.
Her teaching is explained in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995), par. 60: "What is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo. Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientific debates and those philosophical affirmations to which the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself, the Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result of human procreation, from the first moment of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as body and spirit."
One doesn't have to have religious faith to accept the reasoning behind that: the Church's position is to doubt in favour of the humanity of the fertilised ovum. Accordingly, the moral obligation is clearly stated in the instruction Donum Vitae (1987), par. 79: "The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception [meaning "fertilisation"\]; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognised, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life."
Prof Martin Clynes (November 26th) says that the fertilised ovum is indeed a human person, yet Prof Clynes supports IVF, with its process of freezing and thawing of embryos. Some 60 per cent of frozen embryos die in the thawing process. Would Prof Clynes object to being frozen himself if he was assured it would help cure Prof McConnell of vague concepts of human personhood? - Yours, etc.,
SÉAMAS de BARRA, Beaufort Downs, Rathfarnham Village, Dublin 14.
Madam, - Here we go again: zygotes et al. It is as rational to say that a zygote is a human being as it to say that the inhabitants of O'Connell Street are unicellular.
It seems that the intuitive idea of an immaterial soul simply cannot be reconciled with the scientific idea of brain activity emerging during evolution, at least in the present state of knowledge. Because, at the moment of conception, a new human genome is determined, is no reason to believe in the idea of the ghost in the machine: at fertilisation, the ghost enters the machine! In fact, there is no such time as the "moment" of conception: several spermatozoa sometimes enter an ovum, and it takes time for the ovum to eject the extra chromosomes.
Where is the soul during this time? Even when a single spermatozoan enters, its genes remain separate from those of the ovum for a day or more and it takes at least another day for the new genome to control the cell. So the "moment" of conception is really a span of one to two days.
Again, what of the case of monozygotic twins: is the soul divided? Occasionally also, two embryos can become one human being, as when two zygotes merge into a single embryo that may develop into a chimera (some of his/her cells have one genome, others another). Does the body in this case contain two souls?
There seems to be no solution to dilemmas of this kind and trying to pinpoint just when the ghost enters the machine is (at least scientifically) untenable. Of course, there could be a ghost in the machine, but if so, there is no evidence for it and plenty of evidence against it. - Yours, etc.,
JAMES MURPHY, The Pigeons, Athlone, Co Westmeath.
Madam, - The Irish Times should be congratulated for giving space to airing the case for and against the Government position on EU funding of human embryo research. However, the official line of your newspaper does no credit to a serious matter which involves ethical, constitutional, legal and human rights issues. This is not a re-run of the X-case. At least five EU states have serious concerns about the proposal. Furthermore, the way it was presented to Cabinet and kept from the Oireachtas is an appalling indictment of how serious public business is conducted.
That your official editorial line has been so dismissive of the concerns of a huge number of perfectly reasonable people indicates a smugness and self-righteousness that you would decry in those who do not share your editorial views.
Far from the debate being over, it never happened.
Perhaps we all need to open our minds a little more - including those who conduct Irish Times editorial policy. - Yours, etc.,
GAY MITCHELL, TD, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2.