In this enquiry into the status of the human embryo in the Christian tradition, Dr Jones, senior lecturer in bioethics at Surrey University, clears up a question that has puzzled me: why did Richard Harries, the Anglican bishop of Oxford, claim in the House of Lords in 2000 that far from representing 2,000 years of history, the present teaching of the Catholic Church on the respect owed to the human embryo from the first moment of its existence is less than 200 years old?

It seems he simply mistook variations in canonical penalties for abortion to indicate changes in the Church’s teaching. Such errors can do great damage, misleading even devout Christians into thinking that, for example, experimentation on human embryos is not gravely wrong. This timely volume covers the legal, scientific, philosophical and ethical dimensions of the subject as well as the theological aspects; it handles the vast literature on this most urgent debate with great skill and lucidity so that any lay person who wants to understand its complexities can easily do so. Summaries at the end of each chapter are especially useful.

The Greeks and Romans practised both abortion and infanticide; significantly, for Jews of the Old Testament both practises were abhorrent and condemned as homicide. Psalm 139 –“Thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb” – is a key text; children are called by God and are seen as a blessing, not a curse. In the first century AD, the Didache states categorically: ‘You shall not kill a child by abortion, nor kill it after it is born.’ Christians, we know, do not always practise what they preach; early Church Fathers, such as Jerome, Ambrose and John Chrysostom, all wrote and preached against abortions committed by Church members.

The question of abortion rightly raises the question of personhood: what kind of soul has an embryo and, importantly, when is it ‘ensouled’? All the earliest Christian texts place ensoulment at conception and this has been the Church’s constant tradition. St Thomas Aquinas’ theory of ‘delayed ensoulment’ – which plays into the hands of modern biotechnology - has never been generally accepted. Thus the embryo is a ‘person with potential’, not ‘a potential person’.

Jones, drawing on the theology of John Saward’s Redeemer in the Womb, links the incarnation of Christ to that of every human conception: “It is in the littleness of Christ as an embryo in the womb of the Virgin that we should understand the human embryo.” One might add that Catholics believe in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, not that of an immaculate 14-day old embryo.

Embryologists, for their part, understand the process of development as beginning with fertilization, not implantation in the womb, thus strengthening the case against the ‘morning-after’ pill. John Locke’s definition of personhood as linked to rational choice – now used by those who would end the lives of vulnerable adults – is rightly repudiated. Christian teaching has always protected the weak, whether in the womb or at later stages of life.

Problematic questions arising from identical twins or the huge numbers of very early miscarriage are discussed. These, the author points out, are our problem rather than God’s; if we find it hard to imagine embryos in heaven, it is because heaven itself, and the glory of risen souls in a state of grace (at whatever stage of life) is hard for us to comprehend. Jones’ tone is always scholarly and persuasive rather than didactic. His research is truly comprehensive, making his book an essential contribution in this field; it should be read by all who are concerned with the chief ethical question of our age.

© 2005 Francis Phillips

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