DJ: How would you respond to that, Nigel?

NB: With regard to both the killing of infants and the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia, my concern is to maintain a general social commitment to upholding hindered human life. It seems to me that we need therefore to encourage people to support each other when life is difficult. In this country we have child abuse, and at any one time we have about 500,000 cases of elder abuse, mostly by family members, according to Age UK. So given the fact that we don't live in ideal social circumstances, and where people often do abuse each other, I think we need to be as conservative as possible as to where we draw certain lines. Regarding abortion and infanticide, I agree with Peter, and Christians would tend to agree with him, that the status of the foetus is actually a crucial issue. Unlike some feminists who say the issue is simply a matter of the mother's choice, the personal status of the foetus is a central issue.

I also agree with Peter that it's not clear  that a human foetus is the same kind of thing as an adult or a mature human being, and therefore deserves quite the same treatment. It then becomes a question of where  we draw the line, and there is no absolutely cogent reason for drawing it in one place over another.

Peter's view is that human life is only valuable if it exhibits certain qualities, and an infant before birth doesn't have these qualities, so we can abort it — and an infant after birth doesn't have these qualities either, so we may kill it. My view is that we should draw the line much more conservatively. This is simply because the killing of any human being is a morally hazardous business, even if it is permitted at an early foetal stage. It isn't something that we should do casually and wantonly, and I suspect that Peter would agree with that.

So I would be inclined to draw the line for abortion at 18 weeks after conception, which is roughly about the earliest time when there is some evidence of brain activity, and therefore of consciousness. In terms of maintaining a strong social commitment to preserving human life in hindered forms, and in terms of not becoming too casual about killing human life, we need to draw the line much more conservatively.

DJ: You are making the case there on utilitarian grounds, saying that society needs us to be very cautious in this, rather than appealing to a transcendent law or commandment.

NB: The argument there is consequential, but not consequentialist. Within Christian thinking there is scope for making consequential arguments, but consequences are not the only considerations. In addition to questions of consequences, in certain cases the quality of the intention and the motive are also relevant and important.  Generally speaking, one should never intend to kill a human being in the sense of wanting to. There should always be reluctance. The more mature a foetal life becomes, the more reluctant we should become for two reasons. First, because it's not clear when the human embryo becomes personal — we don't know for certain. It's not clear and if we end up doing damage to something that is an emerging person, then we do damage to something that is preciously good in itself. We shouldn't want to do that. Second, we have to encourage the whole of society to be very cautious about the taking of human life.