In his articleObsessive compulsive disordersome time ago,Martin Sciclunaasserted that: An ovum is a living cell, as is a spermatozoon. Both can be described as alive. The cluster of cells which is the embryo is likewise alive. But this is not the same as saying it is a human person or a baby. The question is: at what stage of development should the status of a child be accorded to an embryo of the human species? Fertilised eggs and embryos lack any capacity for personhood by any standard of neurological functioning... To declare them as such is to devalue the personhood of actual children. This is paving the way for the introduction of abortion in Malta for disabled unborn children and euthanasia. I dont know how Scicluna arrived at this description of an embryo. He is no medical scientistand isno authority on embryology. He quoted no authoritative sources at all. It washisdefinition of an embryo. Again he painted himself an authority on thissubject. He also rested his views on what certain sectors of religious beliefs say about the human embryo. Yet, ironically, he lambastedreligious believers for thinking they alone can define a nations morality... and for wantingto impose their morality on … Continue reading →

Ernst Haeckel was an influential German scientist who supported Charles Darwins theory of evolution. He published his influential theory of embryology, distilled as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in 1866, seven years after Darwins On the Origin of Species. Haeckels theory fell out of favor and hasnt been part of evolutionary theory for many decades, but its still cited today as a cause of mischief by modern Creationists. Haeckels theory The similarities between embryos of different animal species were noted decades before Darwin: while adults of different species are easy to tell apart, their embryos are not. Haeckel took this further and is most known for his 1874 drawing (above) of the development of various animal embryosfish, chicken, human, and so onto illustrate his point. Ontogeny is the development of an embryo, and phylogeny is an organisms evolutionary history. So by ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, Haeckel was saying that you can watch through an organisms development as an embryo a replay of its development through hundreds of million years of evolution. For example, a human embryo first looks like a fish (notice the gill-like structure), then like a reptile (four limbs and a tail), and finally like a mammal, which is the evolutionary … Continue reading →

Calling the draft surrogacy Bill narrow, the parliamentary committee has recommended allowing live-in couples, divorced women and widows to use surrogates, adding that a surrogate should not have to belong to the parents family. The committee has said that purely altruistic surrogacy will infringe on the surrogates rights. Credit: Reuters New Delhi:Criticising the Centres draft Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 for having a narrow understanding of Indian society and playing into patriarchal assumptions, the parliamentary panel that was set up to look into the Bills provisions and speak to experts in the field has recommended broadening the Bills purview and a more liberal surrogacy framework in an 88-page report. No such thing as purely altruistic surrogacy The original Bill wanted to do away with commercial surrogacy and instead base it on altruism. The surrogate has to be a close relative of the married couple in question (who must be infertile, of Indian origin, married for at least five years and between 23-50 for women and 26-55 for men years of age). A woman can act as a surrogate only once, the Bill said, while she is between 25 and 35 years of age. This definition of altruistic surrogacy, the 31-member has … Continue reading →