One of my favourite movies of all time is
‘Children of Men’. The film is set in the near future with the basic premise
that humanity has lost its ability to produce children and so is slowly dying
out. There is huge sadness whenever
somebody dies as that means there is one less person on the planet. Suddenly
and unexpectedly a woman becomes pregnant for the first time in many years. The
film is really about how one man responds to the challenge of protecting the
woman and her child.
I apologise to anyone who has not seen the
film (it is really worth watching in my opinion) because here is a major
spoiler. At one point in the movie, the
totalitarian administration is trying to quell an armed insurrection and the
woman and her child get caught up in a street battle. It is then revealed that
she is pregnant and for a brief moment everyone stops fighting to protect the
woman and her unborn child from harm. It’s a moment of pure genius as the mists
part ever so briefly to allow the world to take stock of what is going on and
to realise what is a priority. The woman and child leave the battlefield and
the fighting resumes.
I truly wish we could see the conception of
every child from a perspective like this.
My wife is an incredible inspiration to me.
She has seen much more of life at the cold edge of having to survive than I
have and despite that (or maybe because of that) she is one of the most caring
people I have ever met.
When it comes to issues of what actually
matters I deeply trust her intuition.
This article really begins with a
conversation that we had a few weeks ago. She said to me that even though we
have so much more resources here in Ireland versus her home country of Kenya
she understood why women struggled with having children here. Back in her home
country, having a child is always something to celebrate because society is
setup to support you (be it through family and friends and extended community).
There are always people there as you bring your baby into the world, even if
you have no money, no partner and even if you have health issues. The bringing of children into the world is almost
always seen as something tremendously positive.
When we discussed it further she made the
observation that the bringing up of children is seen as secondary to other
aspects of Irish society. Careers, status, wealth generation are seen as more
important than nurturing the next generation. Families are broken up between
generations, children are looked after by child minder services, and mothers
and fathers are encouraged to earn money to support this model. Essentially this means that we have adopted a
much more short-term view of society albeit to seek greater gains as individual
members of a society.
John Moriarty took the view that western
society was regressing from an evolutionary perspective particularly when it
came to raising children. There is far more emphasis now on individual pursuits
rather than on more collective pursuits (like raising a family) and even though
those pursuits can bring great benefits in individual intellectual development
they can lead us astray when it comes to creating a caring and inclusive
society.
I really believe my wife is right. It
genuinely has become difficult to have children in the western world. You only
have to look at the aging population crisis that almost every country (Ireland
excluded interestingly) in the western world is experiencing. The bottom line
is that we are not producing enough children to sustain the kind of society we
have created. And the society we have
created has made it difficult to produce the very children it needs to survive.
I think this is at the heart of a
fundamental societal problem in what we have come to call the ‘developed
world’.
The consequences of making it difficult to
have a child have convinced many people that abortion is a basic human right
rather than seeing it as something that is gravely and fundamentally wrong.
I am against abortion once a process known
is implantation has been established. Implantation takes place about 1-2 weeks
after conception. Once implantation takes place all the necessary elements to
create a human being (or human beings) are in place. For me there is no moral justification for
terminating a pregnancy after this point unless it genuinely is the only option
to save a mother’s life. And if a termination of pregnancy is necessary then
every effort should be made to ensure the baby delivered has a chance of
survival.
One of the main reasons that I am against
abortion is that as soon as you allow the deliberate killing of an unborn child
you cross a Rubicon. That Rubicon is the
point where the convenience of taking the life of an unborn child is weighed
against the responsibility of bringing the child into the world. Evidence from around the western world
suggests that once you cross this Rubicon, even with the intention of only
allowing an extremely limited form of abortion, you open the doors of
possibility to a much more liberal form of abortion. There are some countries in the world where
abortion is considered a form of birth control right up to the end of
pregnancy. The true horror of abortion
becomes really apparent in this context when you realise that premature babies
can now survive after being delivered at 20 weeks.
I honestly believe that most human beings
would agree that the deliberate killing of a child is abhorrent and utterly
wrong. I say most and not all because
there is a sickeningly growing element in society who agree with abortion
knowing full well what abortion is. You only have to look at the recent court
case in America where a doctor knowingly killed children in the most barbaric
way after delivering them alive.
And this brings me to the principle reason
that I am against abortion. I am totally convinced that abortion is the
deliberate killing of a child when it is in its most fragile stage of
development. I am convinced of this
because of the scientific evidence that is now at our disposal with modern
imaging techniques and the understanding of cell biology.
So what is the scientific evidence that
tells us that abortion is wrong?
Firstly, modern screening technologies over
the last 20 years like real time ultrasonography and foetoscopy have advanced
considerably and given us deep insights into the child’s physical and mental
development during gestation. Studies of the foetal ECG (electrocardiogram –
electrical activity of the heart) and the foetal EEG (electroencephalogram –
electrical activity in the brain) have demonstrated the remarkable
responsiveness of the human child in gestation to pain, touch, and sound. There
is a deepening awareness that the stage at which a child has full functioning
capacity to interact with its environment (even the limited sensory experience
of the womb) happens at a much earlier stage in gestation than was previously
thought. And when I say earlier we are
talking about the time when the child is only a couple of centimetres long.
Medical evidence also tells us that once
cell division takes place in a fertilised egg secure in the wall of a womb that
the physical makeup of that person is defined. And we know that it is only a
matter of time that a living independent entity based on the blueprint in that
cell division process will emerge. Everything that determines the individuality
and originality of a person is established at conception. The first single cell
contains the entire genetic blueprint in all its complexity. That is truly
remarkable as a fact in its own right.
I would argue though that even though the
blueprint for life starts at conception that life starts a little later.
At conception the sperm and egg unite in
one of the fallopian tubes to form a one-celled entity called a zygote
(sometimes there is more than one zygote). Each zygote has 46 chromosomes — 23
from the mother and 23 from the father. These chromosomes will help determine
the biological makeup of the baby. Everything from eye colour to personality
traits is contained in this chromosome mix.
Soon after fertilization, the zygote
travels down the fallopian tube toward the uterus. At the same time, it will
begin dividing rapidly to form a cluster of cells resembling a tiny raspberry.
By the time it reaches the uterus, the rapidly dividing ball of cells — now
known as a blastocyst — has separated into two sections. The inner group of
cells will become the embryo. The outer group of cells will become the
membranes that nourish and protect it.
On contact with the uterus, it will burrow
into the uterine wall for nourishment. This process is called implantation. The
entire process takes about a week.
Shortly after implantation the placenta,
which will support the baby throughout the pregnancy, begins to form.
Researchers estimate that a high percentage
of all naturally occurring conceptions fail because the zygote never becomes
properly implanted in the uterus.
In the abortion world, the argument is
often made that an abortion is just the removal of a bunch of cells from the
woman’s body.
Up to implantation I agree with this (7
days after conception). Without proper implantation in the uterus wall then a
foetus cannot form. From an ethical
perspective there is a still a possibility of the zygote splitting so that identical
twins are formed and that is not yet completely determined before
implantation. So in my opinion,
contraception, morning after pills and interventions in the first week to avoid
implantation are permissible and ethically justifiable.
However, once implantation takes place then
you are dealing with a lifeform that has a right to life. Implantation takes about a week. The 21 days
after conception marks the beginning of the embryonic period. This is when the baby's
brain, spinal cord, heart and other organs begin to form.
The embryo is now made of three layers. The
top layer — the ectoderm — will give rise to the baby's outermost layer of
skin, central and peripheral nervous systems, eyes, inner ear, and many
connective tissues.
The baby's heart and a primitive
circulatory system will form in the middle layer of cells — the mesoderm. This
layer of cells will also serve as the foundation for the baby's bones, muscles,
kidneys and much of the reproductive system.
The inner layer of cells — the endoderm —
will become a simple tube lined with mucous membranes. The baby's lungs,
intestines and bladder will develop here.
By the end of this week, the baby is likely
to be about the size of the tip of a pen.
I agree that I have used the terms cells in
the above sentences. However, the difference here is that cell division is
working to a blueprint in a process that is still not completely understood
(except that we know the obvious outcome – the formation of a human being over
time). Yes we are dealing with cells but
we are also dealing with them at a time when we know a human being is growing.
Every human being ever created starts like this.
The heart starts beating somewhere between
18 and 25 days. It takes this amount of time for the circulatory system to be a
closed loop and at just 28 days after conception, the neural tube along the
baby's back is closing and the heart is pumping blood. Basic facial features
will begin to appear, including passageways that will make up the inner ear and
arches that will contribute to the jaw. The baby's body begins to take on a
C-shaped curvature. Small buds will soon become arms and legs.
Electrical brainwaves have been recorded at
43 days on an EEG. If the absence of a brainwave indicates death then the
presence of brain wave activity indicates life. It is still feasible that
brainwaves could be discovered earlier as more sensitive recording instruments
become available.
The brain and all body systems are present
by 8 weeks and functioning a month later.
At 8 weeks, the baby will wake and sleep,
make a fist, suck their thumb, and get hiccups. The fact that the baby sleeps
is a clear indicator that cerebral development is taking place.
At the end of 9 weeks, the baby has their
own unique finger prints.
At 11-12 weeks, the end of the first
trimester, the baby is sensitive to heat, touch, light and noise. All body
systems are working.
They weigh about 28g and are 6-7.5 cm long.
In other words they are fully developed
before the mother's pregnancy is even noticeable. They are just very fragile
and in need of a growth and strengthening stage to make them less dependent on
the placenta and the mother. How can anyone claim that an entity with the above
attributes is not a child?
It is important to stress again that these
are medical facts.
What is also truly remarkable is that in
this incredibly short time frame a human being has gone through all stages of
evolution, from single cell composition right through to a functional human
being in a truly miraculous snapshot on how our species has evolved over 3.5
billion years.
That we cannot revere this amazing aspect
of who we are is deeply saddening to me.
Even with the medical facts above, many
people are convinced that abortion is a right.
Most abortion regimes in the world allow for
the termination of pregnancy after the first trimester.
And so a much deeper argument as to why
abortion is fundamentally wrong is required.
It is not a moral argument (although there
is a very strong argument here) – it is based on an evolutionary argument that
goes back many millions of years to the period of time when we became placenta
based mammals.
All life evolved from basic life forms.
This means that at one stage in our distant past (about 3.5 billion years ago)
the basic building blocks of the human body were the building blocks of
microbial life on Earth. Our ultimate genetic ancestors were single celled
entities. In many ways the ‘conception’ of the human species started at this
point.
Over that 3.5 billion years life has
evolved from single cell microbial life-forms (Archeon and Proterozoic
geological periods – about 3 billion years long), through life-forms living
underwater (Cambrian period – 150 million years long) then through Amphibian
life-forms capable of living under water and on land (Carboniferous period – 50
million years long), and then through Reptiles that laid eggs on the land
(Permian period – 35 million years
long), then through the dinosaur period (Triassic, Jurassic and
Cretaceous periods – 200 million years long), from which mammals evolved
(Paleogene, Neogene and Quaternary periods – 65 million years long).
Homo sapiens only emerged about 100,000
years ago. The first cave paintings were done about 20,000 years ago.
In the context of evolution, human beings
have only arrived very recently.
It is an enormous mental challenge to get
around this fact given how far we have come in evolution. It has divided
science and religion pretty much since Darwin’s publication of the ‘On Origin
of the Species’ on 24th November 1859. It has caused brilliant minds
like John Moriarty to almost go crazy trying to work out how spirituality and
3.5 billion years of evolution come together under a common understanding.
One of the key aspects of evolution is
reproduction and how learning from one generation gets passed onto the next.
Essentially each generation is a keeper of the knowledge of how to survive as a
species for passing on to the next generation of that species. Each species has evolved to instinctually
have this at the top of their priority list.
In the reptile world, the world of
creatures like the crocodile, immediate short-term survival is top of the
instinct agenda. Lots of eggs are laid, which then become fertilised and tiny
versions of the creature in question battle it out in a harsh world with only
the fittest surviving. Fittest is not
just about being strong – it is far more about being capable of adapting to
change. A young reptile must be able to rapidly adapt to an environment that they
are born into or very quickly face death.
The survivors of this cruel first phase of
reptile life become the custodians of the gene pool for the next generation and
so it goes on.
Immediate short-term survival is not only
an instinct at birth for a reptile. A crocodile will eat its own young in order
to survive – the idea being that it can always produce more off spring at a
later time. This kind of short-term thinking is very typical of a reptilian
brain.
Humans still have a reptilian brain. It’s
the oldest part of our brain and still controls our most basic instincts around
survival and reproduction. Thankfully we
have more evolved parts of our brain to moderate these primal instincts but
make no mistake – the primitive reptilian brain is alive and well in humankind
and dictates a lot of our behaviour at a macro level. Think of the stock
market, one of the principle tools used to create wealth in an economy. It is
dictated by two primal instincts – fear and greed - the same instincts that a
reptile like a crocodile is principally controlled by. And we depend on tools
like this to keep western society moving. Moving to where of course is always
an open question.
Returning to reptiles - a key aspect of
reptilian young is that they are immediately ‘viable’ entities when they break
out of the egg.
A
viable being is a being that can survive on its own. In the reptile it is essential that you are
born viable or you will not survive. Even the reptile’s ability to break out of
the egg by themselves is an indicator of how likely they will survive.
This is not the case in the mammal world.
Mammals are a much later evolution than reptiles and it’s this branch of
evolution where humans are top of the chain.
In the mammal world birth involves a
nurturing and caring element between the mother and the infant. The word mammal
actually has its origins in the fact that all female mammals nurture their
young using milk secreted through the mammary glands.
A young mammal must spend time in the world
in the care of the mother in order to be able to survive. A young mammal is not
born viable. In other words it is not born with all the necessary skills and
instincts to survive. Without the support of the mother or a surrogate a young
mammal will die.
In the marsupial world (a branch of the
mammal world that dominates mammal life in Australia), a foetus is delivered by
the mother that is about half the size of a kidney bean after 4-5 weeks of
gestation. It makes its own way to a teat in the pouch of the mother where it
is nurtured till it is strong enough to spend longer and longer periods outside
the pouch.
One of the clear reasons marsupials evolved
this way is the need to avoid a long pregnancy so that the mother is
unencumbered from other survival needs like moving long distances to find water
or dealing with rapidly moving bush fires.
At the heart of this development is the ability of the mother to support
and nurture her offspring as it develops in the pouch whilst also protecting
her own well-being.
There is no debate about whether the young
marsupial offspring is or isn’t an independent entity in its own right. It just
has a strong dependency on the mother which diminishes over time. Again this is
standard right across the mammal kingdom. It is worth repeating that in the
mammal kingdom offspring are entirely dependent on the mother for a long period
of time during and beyond a gestation period.
Humans evolved as placenta based mammals.
Essentially this means that our offspring spend their gestation period inside
the mother wrapped in a placenta that protects and nourishes them during this
very sensitive period. The child is totally dependent on the mother during this
time. It’s the period in life when you are most vulnerable and most dependent
on the care of another human being.
The reasons placenta based mammals evolved
this way was to give maximum protection to the offspring. A placenta based gestation is much more
challenging to the mother than a marsupial based gestation. In the case of humans, placenta based
evolution made sense as we are not a particularly strong or fast species and in
earlier times our ‘human’ ancestors were easy prey to lots of predators. We were however organised in groups (which is
another strong trait of mammals) which could provide protection for the
offspring. It was out of these groupings
that early community and societies were formed.
Long gestation periods are associated with
mammals with larger brains. Dolphins, Whales and Elephants for example have
gestation periods of up 20 months. There are many documented examples of
mammals bearing children going to extraordinary lengths to protect their young.
The deepest instinct being to do what they can to protect the offspring when
they are most vulnerable. This is a very
typical mammal instinct – the protection of the young is on an equal footing to
the parent’s survival.
Humans have gone a stage further. Even if a
child is born into the world with physical or learning difficulties we do
everything we can to make sure the child has a decent quality of life.
This part of the evolution is something to
be treasured. That we have evolved with an instinct to protect the most
vulnerable is something truly extraordinary. In many ways, it makes the
evolutionary journey through all the harrowingly challenging stages where
survival of the species was the primary instinct, to be worthwhile. We have
become a species that genuinely cares for the most vulnerable not on the basis
of the survival of the species but on the basis of a right to life.
At the heart of an evolved society is
compassion and care for our most vulnerable members. Ignoring this instinct was what worried John
Moriarty. He believed that western society was actually regressing in
evolutionary terms to a more primitive society.
So here is a thought experiment.
Imagine human beings had evolved on the
marsupial path. Imagine that a small child (half the size of a kidney bean)
emerged from the placenta and made its way to a pouch on the mother so that it
could nourish itself. As the baby grew in strength it would peek over the pouch
and make tentative moves to leave the mother.
This process would go on for 9 months.
Could we honestly say that this is not a
child?
Could we honestly say that the deliberate
killing or maiming of this child is not wrong?
The horror of killing a child at this stage
in its development would now be much more obvious.
We know that there is a huge dependency on
the mother as part of the gestation period. We also know that that dependency
does not stop once the baby is born. In fact the dependency is essential for
the proper development of the child.
Medical capability and expertise has also
meant that even if a child is delivered into the world premature that it has a
strong chance of survival. I personally know the youngest premature survivor in
Ireland who was delivered at 20 weeks.
And as medical expertise develops the time when a baby can be delivered
into the world with an expectation of surviving will drop.
There are places in the world where you can
abort a baby at any stage in pregnancy for any reason that is deemed necessary.
In other places the unborn child is given
an anaesthetic before the abortion procedure goes ahead – a profound admission
even in the places where abortion is performed, that the unborn child is a
whole lot more than a group of developing cells connected to the mother.
And then there are the techniques used for
abortion. Slicing, shredding, dissolving are all words one could use to
describe what happens during the ‘termination’.
Without going into the details, it is truly a horrendous ‘procedure’ –
hidden behind sanitised words like ‘a procedure used to terminate a pregnancy’. It is no wonder why people who
abhor abortion use graphic images and language to get their point across. Abortion
is ultimately about killing a human being when they are completely defenceless
and voiceless without any perceived consequences whatsoever.
Imagine if an abortion was filmed from
within the womb (now possible with the latest camera technology)? I contend that this would challenge any notion
that abortion is nothing more than a simple procedure to terminate a pregnancy.
We have just signed into law abortion
legislation that has no time period stated. A pregnancy can be terminated at
any stage in the pregnancy as long as the conditions to do so are met.
If you accept that a child’s life is at
stake here then this is a grave mistake.
And that is the key point. Once you realise
that abortion is about taking the life of a child then one can only abhor the
practice and condemn it utterly.
We have also signed into law that the
threat of suicide is a justification for an abortion. Abortion is not a medical
treatment for anything. If somebody is suicidal then they need psychological
help and support. Society’s response to an unwanted pregnancy should be one of
support and help to the troubled mum. The problem is that in the developed
world that support and help is often not there.
It is more convenient to kill the unborn child rather than face the
responsibility around the child’s right to life. Aborting a child has deep
consequences and it does not go away. There is a strong argument that abortion
can create suicidal feelings if the woman comes to regret the decision
following the delivery of subsequent children later on.
I mentioned earlier that I know the family
of Ireland’s youngest surviving premature baby. The young girl was delivered at
20 weeks because of a risk to the mother’s health. The mother has Spina-Bifida
and was unable to support the child to term. A medical decision was made to
induce the birth at 20 weeks when there was literally a 50-50 chance of the
baby surviving. Every effort was made to
save both mother and child and the miraculous outcome is that both survived and
are doing fine.
And this happened in Ireland without any
fuss. There are fantastic people in our
medical services who fundamentally understand the essence of protecting mother
and child in birth.
Once you cross the threshold of allowing
the killing of the unborn you create a grim place where the convenience of
killing the child can be weighed against the consequences of taking
responsibility for its right to life.
It’s a far more compassionate and evolved
world if this does not happen.
I contend that at some point in the future
humankind will look at the industrialised abortion phase of our evolution as
one of the darkest periods of humanity.
I also contend that there are very few
things that Ireland can truly take global leadership on. This is one of them. That other countries
have made it legal to have an abortion whenever it is deemed necessary is not a
reason for Ireland to do the same.
We evolved as placenta based mammals to
project our young at their most vulnerable stage in their lives.
What has happened is that we have become
the ultimate predator of our own young.
I appreciate that this is a divisive issue
and one that will have people argue their case very strongly back at me, but I
would rather be wrong on this issue with unplanned children born into the world
(with a society structured to care for them) than being right on the issue
wondering who on Earth have we killed for convenience.
So if abortion is wrong what do we do at a
societal level to address the challenges of terrible circumstances like
pregnancy from rape, fatal foetal abnormalities and underage age pregnancy?
I present the following idea tentatively.
Having given the argument above about western society cultivating a culture of
convenience around reproduction, some might say that this proposal feeds into
that culture. I would argue back strongly that this is not the case but I
accept that it is not fully worked out.
I do however believe it’s a good starting point and a far better approach
than what we have currently.
So in the challenging circumstances above I
suggest that the embryo is removed alive
from the mother’s womb and frozen and made available to surrogate mothers who
want to bear a child but cannot.
As far as I am aware the technology and
capability to do this is not available now.
We can implant frozen embryos into the womb (Frozen Embyro Transfer is a
well-established technique as part of an In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) program)
but there are challenges to safely removing a growing embyro once it has implanted
itself in the Uterus wall. However, given that we can artificially implant the
embryo it is only a matter of time before that process can be reversed.
For me this is the way forward. If we
develop this capability then we have a solution to the abortion dilemma. The storage of embryos would have to be
thought out properly, but even in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities there
may come a time when those abnormalities are treatable as science advances so
freezing embryos till that capability emerges makes sense. Life is not being
taken – it is just being put on hold.
I contend though that even with the
capability above, there would have to be a time limit beyond which the embryo
could not be removed from the womb and the pregnancy would have to go to term
(unless the mother’s life is endangered).
If the underlying principle is that we do
not kill the unborn child but make every effort to protect its right to life
then I believe a scheme like the above would address concerns on all sides and
create a much more caring and holistic approach to the challenges of unwanted
pregnancy. It also completely resonates
with the direction evolution is and has taken the human species.
The alternative is to adopt the barbaric
practice of abortion and justify it on the basis that everyone else is doing it
so why shouldn’t we.
This to me is evolutionary regression.
GMcD 31/7/13
