Worth of human life varies

In two recent letters to the Herald Phil O’Connor seems to equate human life with human personhood. However there has been from the Middle Ages to this day much disagreement about when a human being becomes a human person. In February 2006, Malcolm Turnbull, a recent Catholic convert and currently Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, said in the Federal Parliament:
"It seems to me that our society has already reached a conclusion to the effect that an embryo at this very early stage is more in the nature of a potential than an actual human being and that the rights of this microscopic bundle of cells are not equal to those of a foetus, let alone a newborn baby."
Surely our more secular New Zealand society must also recognise that the worth of human life varies. Otherwise we would equate a microscopic bundle of cells with a child or adult; we would ban abortion and IVF; we would fight to save the life of every foetus no matter how horribly handicapped; we would seek to prolong the life of the terminally ill no matter how insufferable their pain. We do not follow O’Connor in any of these things because his viewpoint is absurd.

Editorial dodges responsibility

The NZ Herald editorial of 23 December insists that parents must control the use of spare human embryos created through IVF. If parental consent is a proxy for the rights of embryos, should not the law be a proxy for the decision of those parents who cannot be found? Quite clearly the missing parents belong to the camp of those who favour IVF and related medical advances, rather than to the opposing camp represented in the Herald columns recently by the Roman Catholic Church and Right to Life New Zealand. Why then does the editorial decide against the parents when it ends by parroting the words of the RC Church about respectfully allowing embryos to die?
The expression “allow to die” is an attempt to do two morally reprehensible things. Firstly, it seeks to disguise the fact that a decision is in fact being made and secondly, it tries to avoid taking any responsibility for the decision. Let us be clear: choosing not to act is just as much a decision as choosing to act. The editorial preference is not only to destroy the embryos, but also to destroy the hopes of many people who suffer from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and other diseases which one day may be curable through the use of stem cells.

Religious opposition to use of stem cells

Ken Orr of Right to Life New Zealand opposes the use of stem cells for medical research because he believes that “At the moment of conception, the embryo is endowed by his Creator with human rights, the foundation of which is the inalienable right to life”. Mr Orr is entitled to his views, but when he seeks to influence the Minister of Health and the wider community he would do well to heed the views of US President-elect Barack Obama on religion and politics:
“Democracy demands that the religiously-motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It requires that proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice I can’t simply point to the teachings of my church, or invoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those of no faith at all.”
Few New Zealanders believe that a microscopic dot has the same rights as a human person. To convince the rest of us to stand in the way of medical advances Mr Orr will have to do better than his confusion of Biblical interpretation and Enlightenment values.