Mal Fletcher comments

Others have wondered, if we now accept experimentation on the unborn, what will stop a new generation of scientists from wanting to experiment on people who are comatose, or dying?

And what's to stop the use of aborted foetal material in eugenics-type experiments like the ones carried out by the Nazis?

One point cries out to be made here: there are far more abortions carried out right now than could ever be justified on the basis of scientific research.

The big question for us is this: is an embryo or foetus a human being? There are basically five views on this -- and each of us must make our choice from these options.

You may choose to believe that the embryo or foetus is nothing more than a growth inside the mother's womb, a collection of cells. Alternatively, you may believe that the embryo or foetus becomes human somewhere between conception and birth. This one is tricky: where do we draw the line, and for what reasons?

A third option is the idea that the embryo becomes a person only after it reaches viability, the time when the foetus can survive on its own.

A number of studies have shown, however, that unborn children exhibit many truly human traits long before they're ready to live unaided.

Some people choose to believe that birth itself is the crucial moment when personhood begins. But how can we justify giving a baby a completely different right-to-life status five minutes before it is born, or even one minute before?

Our final option is that the embryo has been human all along, right from the time it was first conceived. If that's the case, the embryo has had inviolable rights from conception.

This latter option is the one supported by most conservative scholars in the reading of the Bible and other major religious texts.

In biblical terms, the embryo is like the seed of a tree - it isn't yet all that it will become, but it contains everything needed to get there. It is not just a 'potential' human being - it is human.

But there's more to it even than that. The scriptures teach that we should treat the embryo as a person because it is known and loved by God - it is a human being for which he has very special plans. There are several examples in the Bible narrative of people whose future was announced before they were even conceived - Samson and John the Baptist among them.

Mary, the mother of Christ, was told by an angelic messenger about the unique son she would bring into this world. Again, this was before she even became pregnant.

If a baby is valuable to God before it is even conceived - because he knows what it will grow to become - how can it be of lesser value afterwards?

When is an embryo human? The Bible's answer is: right from the start!

Is it possible that one day, a few hundred years hence, people will look back and thank God that humanity gave up on abortion, just as it did on slavery?

Is it possible that the forefront of that change will be Christians who lovingly, wisely and courageously put their case, as did abolitionists like Wilberforce centuries before? We should all hope so.