The Value of Human Life: Volatility of Concepts

• Main Authors: L. Hrydkovets, A. Pohorilenko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kiev Institute of Business and Technology 2019-03-01
• Series: Вісник: Київський інститут бізнесу та технологій
• Subjects: the evolution of scientific thought; embryology; psychology; right to life; artificial termination of pregnancy; abortion.
• Online Access: https://herald.kibit.edu.ua/index.php/visnyk/article/view/63

The right to life is a fundamental right, the legal basis for all other human rights. Recognition and proper protection at the state level of this most important right is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of other rights. However, do we respect each life, regardless of any personal characteristics? The history of humanity shows that the caste/class approach to the formation of society is one of humanity's most brutal inventions. The categorization of people into more critical and less critical in many cases led to antihuman practices, such as slavery or serfdom, and atrocious crimes ranging from rape to murder. Scientific and social progress must have pushed aside such medieval approaches, but the results of this study indicate that social neglection just shifted from those who have stood for their rights for hundreds of years to those who cannot - to the unborn. In this study, we demonstrate the historical development of embryology, medicine, biology, psychology, and other sciences in order to understand the exact point of the beginning of human life. Scientists in the United States of the mid-19th century were found to be the leading opponents of artificial termination of pregnancy and believed that most abortionists carry vestiges of outdated dogmatic views on the nature of human life, including its beginning and prenatal development. We present that, despite the achievements of science, the society press the legalization of the murder of the unborn, the primary reason for which is the irresponsible attitude to sexual life. This study presents the positions of modern scientists on the prenatal development of the child; data on the old and the new paradigms in embryology in the context of the relationships between mother and child; the results of the psychological research on the impact of abortion scenario in the family system on the health of offspring; and other data indicating that a child before birth is not just a material clot of cells, but a full-fledged subject, person and participant of social life.