The notable differences between John Harris's essay (chapter i) and his earlier writings suggest the fragility of the grounds he offers for abandoning our deeply meditated traditions and embracing euthanasia. The ground he marks out is indeed shifting.

‘INDIVIDUAL’

Harris's definition of euthanasia, and much of his discussion, employs the term ‘individual’. The theme of our exchange, of course, is not abortion. But it would be wrong to overlook his essay's striking assertion that ‘the individual can be said to have come into existence when the egg is first differentiated or the sperm that will fertilise that egg is first formed’. Contrast this with chapter i of The Value of Life (often cited in the essay), where Harris maintained that ‘fertilisation does not result in an individual even of any kind’ and that ‘the emergence of the individual occurs gradually’, after conception.

In 1985, Harris had two arguments for denying that a human individual begins at conception: that the ‘fertilised egg’ (i.e. the early embryo) will divide into two elements (the embryo proper, as distinct from the placenta and related tissues), and that some early embryos split to form twins. Both those arguments are quite inadequate bases for denying what the definite article in the otherwise tendentious phrase ‘the fertilised egg’ bears witness to: that from conception there is at all stages an individual organic entity.