Just reading this story on DNA testing in today's Times. The tests include the creation and destruction of embryos. I have been struggling to articulate my feelings on this. Part of the problem is that while I disagree with those on the right who say that life surely begins at conception, I am not ready to say when it does. Nor am I willing to concede that an embryo is no different than a fingernail or cut hair -- clearly it is the beginning of a human life, and has a special status.
I think it boils down to a slippery slope. Let's take a scale where 1 is a newly-fertilized embryo, and 10 is a new-born infant. Nobody would freeze an infant for later use, or discard it. Nor would many accept the same for a late-term fetus. There is a point on the scale made by each of us according to our conscience, and the collective design of those points is our cultural view on the matter.
If we permit the destruction of embryos, will the grade change? The common term for "sperm meets egg" used to be conception. Now we say fertilization, moving from a term connoting human agency to one of pure biology. Is that movement on the slope?
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