The Syngamy Debate: When Precisely Does a Human Life Begin?

For a discussion of the basis of this prohibition, see Kuhse H. Singer P. , “The Ethics of Embryo Research,” Law, Medicine and Health Care 1986, 14(3–4): 133–38.

Strictly speaking, the problem was not section 6(5), since this had not been proclaimed, and so had no legal force at this time. Section 29, however, required SRACI to have regard to the spirit and intent of the Act in its work. The committee held that this required it to have regard to section 6(5), even though it had not been proclaimed.

Harrison R.G. , Clinical Embryology, London: Academic Press, 1978, p. 4.

The St. Vincent's Bioethics Centre is a Victorian centre for research in bioethics which supports Roman Catholic approaches to issues in bioethics. The submission was published anonymously under the title “Identifying the Origin of a Human Life,” in St. Vincent's Bioethics Newsletter 1987, 5(1): 4–6.

See Dawson K. , “Fertilisation and Moral Status,” Journal of Medical Ethics 1987 13:173–78.

“Identifying the Origin of a Human Life,” supra note 4, 4.

See Dawson K. , “Segmentation and Moral Status,” Bioethics 1988, 2(1): 1–14.

See Singer P. Dawson K. , “IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1988, 17: 87–104.

See Dawson K. , supra note 5.

Mahadevan M. Trounson A. , “The Influence of Seminal Characteristics on the Success Rate of Human In Vitro Fertilization,” Fertility and Sterility, 42: 400–05.

Kola I. Trounson A. Dawson G. Rogers P. , “Tripronuclear Human Oocytes: Altered Cleavage Patterns and Subsequent Karyotypic Analysis of Embryos,” Biology of Reproduction 1987, 37: 395–401.

Jacobs P. , “The Origins of Human Triploids,” Annals of Human Genetics, 42: 49–57; Sherard , “Long Survival in a 69XXY Triploid Male,” American Journal of Medical Genetics, 25: 307–12. We owe these references to the article by Kola Trounson Dawson Rogers , cited above.

For a discussion of possible genetic changes after this point, see Dawson , supra note 5.

Secs. 4(2) and 4(4)(d).

See Dawson , supra notes 5 and 7.

For one argument that it is not morally important when a new human being begins to exist, see Kuhse H. Singer P. , supra note 1.