Not just a bunch of cells

Broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 24 Feb 2013.

Even casual royal watchers will have noticed that Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, is several months pregnant with a baby who will be third in line to the British throne.  And careful observers will have noticed the media’s enthusiasm for the word “baby” rather than “foetus” in press reports.

One insightful blogger, known by the alias “Archbishop Cranmer,” pointed out (tongue-in-cheek):

Surely such ‘pro-choice’ newspapers and journals (and people) should be talking about a bunch of pluripotent stem cells, an embryo or a foetus? For reports suggest that the Duchess is still in her first trimester, so this is not yet a baby; and certainly nothing with any kind of destiny. At this stage, surely, it is a non-person, just like the other 201,931 non-persons who last year were evacuated from wombs in England, Scotland and Wales.

Or are royal foetuses endowed with full humanity from the point of conception?

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.