We believe that an abortion, being the destruction of a human life, is something to be deplored. Any move therefore, which would increase the number of abortions is equally to be deplored.
1. As doctors, we consider it our duty to safeguard the life and health of our patients. What non-medical people apparently fail to realize is that when a pregnant woman comes to a doctor, the doctor considers that he has two patients to look after. This is not the opinion based on metaphysical or theological speculation. This is a simple fact based on scientific evidence. That the foetus is human life is indisputable; on cytogenetic grounds “human”, as distinct from other animal or vegetable life, from the single cell stage; from the stage stage, living, by all accepted biological criteria.
2. We wish to state most emphatically that the conclusion of modern embryology is that the human embryo is from the moment of fertilization a distinctively human organism. Any revival of medieval ideas to the contrary is utterly to be deprecated.
3. There is no physiological cut-off point before which this human life is not a human person, but after which the rights and duties of a person are present. What is most evident is that if such a human life is not terminated, at the time when an abortion is considered, then gradually over the rest of intra-uterine life and the years after birth such “lives” will mature into obvious human persons. To this life, therefore, to this developing (rather than ‘potential’) human person, respect is due.