Being unborn: When does life begin?
There is a serious moral issue involved in medical abortions. If the foetus can breathe, have a heartbeat, developing brain and functioning organs,isn't it ridiculous to presume that it may not have any take on a subject concerning its life or death?
RECENTLY, NIKETA Mehta and her husband were in news for making an appeal to the Bombay High Court to permit them to abort Niketa’s 26 weeks old unborn baby, which was detected with some serious heart disease. The Indian law permits abortion only up to 20 weeks and hence the Mehta couple had to seek legal intervention in the matter. By doing so, they also highlighted the ethics involved in aborting malformed foetus older than 20 weeks. However, the court refused to grant permission. After the furore died down, only few papers cared to carry the news that Niketa had a miscarriage. It is any body’s guess whether or not the process was abetted by medical intervention.
The parents apply for permission, a judge vetoes it out and a doctor helps perform the abortion. All this on an individual, whose opinion has neither been sought nor presumed to be even existent! The foetus is never asked whether it wishes to be born or simply be killed for the convenience of humankind in general and parents in particular. If only it could talk.
Being unborn is perhaps the most dangerous phase of our lives. Even as we reveal in the new changes that rapidly occur in our body, there lurks a fear that our lives may terminate well before we can see the light of the world. If I am a female, there is greater chance of that. If any of my organs are not formed to perfection-on which I have no control-I will die before being born.
If I can breathe, have a heartbeat, developing brain and functioning organs, isn’t it ridiculous to presume I may not have any take on a subject-that too when it directly concerns my life or death? Where even a murderer is entitled for legal representation, why not me? Because I am as yet vocally and physically challenged?”
True. For resolving the dilemma, (if at all it is possible) we have to seek an answer for this simple question-when does life begin? Is it at the fertilisation of the egg and sperm? Is it at the first heartbeat of a growing embryo? Or is it at the birth of a baby?
After fertilisation, the growing embryo reaches an eight-celled stage called the blastocyst and then the blastomere. If at this stage each of the cells is separated, then it has the capacity of growing into a separate individual! This probably is multiple personalities at the earliest! So, does life begin at the blastomere stage?
The dilemma is pronounced in infertility clinics world over. Couples undergoing artificial reproductive techniques for various medical reasons, are sometimes successful in getting not one but two or three embryos. When they often opt for one to be implanted, the other two must be preserved-either for later use by the same couple or for embryo donation. Preserving potential life for decades in the freezer may not exactly be a very dignified way, but we are left with no options.
In the unfortunate event of the death of biological parents or non-availability of embryo recipients (may be unlikely) what would be the fate of the would-be, voiceless, defenseless individual in the freezer? Dry it out without being booked for murder or keep it in suspended animation? Who has the right to decide this?
There have been collective efforts to look into this extremely soul-searching matter, the possible resolution resting on the extent to which our societies have evolved morally and the level of pre-conceptional genetic diagnosis possible and permissible.
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