British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

Sir, I will happily respond to David Aaronovitch’s challenge (Comment, March 25) when he will answer me these questions.

First, does he think that there is any difference between humans and other animals, and does this difference matter? Secondly, what makes him think he can reduce the function of religion (which Jews, Christians and Muslims have traditionally seen as being about public truth) to the provision of “comfort and companionship”? Thirdly, where in St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians — or anywhere else for that matter — does the Apostle attack the “sinful mixing” which Mr Aaronovitch seems to think is the sole subject matter of Leviticus?

The Right Rev Tom Wright

Bishop of Durham

Sir, Once the sanctity of human life is abandoned in favour of utilitarian solutions, however admirable, justifications will in time be found for just about anything. Of course, we will always have the good old liberal conscience to restrain us. But evidence demonstrates how easily the liberal conscience deceives itself.

Jonathan Luxmoore

Religious News, Warsaw

Sir, Some journalists and politicians may have missed the point regarding the Catholic Church’s position in relation to hybrid embryos. Even if scientific advances showed that this research could lead to a cure for every known disease, Catholics and many others would still be opposed. This is because the research involves the interference and destruction of human life at an early stage, with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the same way that it is not in the remit of scientists to pronounce on metaphysical issues such as the cause of the material Universe and the “big bang”, scientific advances cannot make experimentation on human embryos morally acceptable. This research has rightly been banned in the majority of other European countries with good reason; to belittle the Catholic Church’s stance on this serious issue is unfair and dangerous.

Dermott O’Gorman

Wallington, Surrey

Sir, It should not be forgotten that the present view about the human embryo was not always held by the Catholic Church. In the Middle Ages its status was argued over seriously, and Thomas Aquinas himself held that for the first few months of life it was, in Aristotle’s classification, only a vegetable. Without wishing to support that, I suggest that the view that at the very first stage of conception the embryo is fully human is only a dogma.

Pamela Huby

Harlington, Beds