When Christopher Howse speaks of "feeding a baby with another baby", (The Tablet, 28 February) he is not being emotional, so much as displaying a breathtaking lack of basic biological knowledge. An egg (ovum) is not an embryo or a baby. During their lifetime most women will produce a couple of hundred such eggs, the great majority of which will be flushed down the drain without any emotional anxiety or belief that they are disposing of embryos or babies. Even when eggs are fertilised, they are still neither embryos or babies. When a couple spend many years "trying for a baby", it may well be that their problem is that fertilised eggs are failing to be implanted and are being lost in the same way. The only emotion that is appropriate here, is sympathy for the disappointment of the would-be parents. No embryos or babies are involved.
The real criticism of the promoters of these procedures is their total failure to educate the public about the biological details of the procedures before launching into a for-or-against confrontation. As a result, we are deprived of serious, informed consideration of the ethical issues and left with a conflict of ill-considered slogans.
Dr Alfred Layton, Harrow
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