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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 20. August 27 1979

Temporary Palliative?

Temporary Palliative?

To the continuing debate on abortion I would like to contribute one viewpoint without recourse to emotive argument or rhetoric. Any debate on the issue inevitably begins with the classic question of whether the foetus is life or not. This article will not deal with this aspect of the controversy, as the medical profession has made a clear statement to the effect that the humanity of the foetus cannot be denied.

In 1967 the First International Conference on Abortion brought together authorities from around the world in the fields of medicine, law, ethics and the social sciences. They concluded almost unanimously (19-1) that "the majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage and the birth of the infant, at which point we could say that this was not a human life. The changes occurring between implantation, a 6 week old embryo, a six months foetus, a one week old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation."