printer friendly version

A DEADLY QUESTION
An age-old question, not about the meaning of life or the quality of life but the start of life.

More specifically when is a baby considered to be a human being? The issue about life from the point of conception has been in the news a lot in recent times with the IVF programmes and discarded embryos and more recently the debate over embryonic stem cell research, which passed through the House of Reps this week. Passed easily on a conscience vote and now goes to the Senate.

In that debate I made the point that if life begins at the moment of conception, if contraception if virtual murder because it may thwart a life, then our state government is sanctioning murder, in fact has laws in place demanding the killing of babies, because all unused frozen embryos in Victoria must be thawed and destroyed after five years.

Now I don’t believe that. But I raise the issue of when is a life a life because of a court case that has brought the whole debate up again.

It concerns the death of a baby in a road rage case.

Tiny Byron Allen, son of Renee Shields and Ben Allen died minutes after his parents became road rage victims of a hit and run motorist as they drove home from work.

A drunken driver, Michael Leonard Peter Harrigan, admitted in court that he tailgated the couple’s car and drove so close behind them that they eventually slammed into a power pole.

Renee Shields received such ghastly injuries in the accident that she actually died twice on the way to hospital, was revived, had an emergency caesarean and also a hysterectomy so her dream of having a large family also died in the crash.

You would think Harrigan the road rager would have been charged with manslaughter or culpable driving. Right? Wrong?

He was charged with perverting the course of justice because the hit-run driver convinced a business partner to claim the killer car had been stolen. And he did plead guilty to a charge of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm.

But there was a twist to this court case. Byron Allen was actually still in his mother’s womb when he was killed. He was a seven-month old foetus and if born prematurely had a more than 90 per cent chance of surviving.

But under the New South Wales state law – which is 102 years old – Byron could not be considered a human being.

The Crimes Act says a child “shall be held to have been born alive if it has breathed and has been wholly born into the world whether it has independent circulation or not”.

And in layman’s terms that means a baby is not considered to be a baby, not a real human being, until it takes a single breath outside its mother’s body.

It can have a developed brain, a beating heart, fully-formed arms and legs, all vital organs operating and a complete spinal chord and nervous system and could be brought into the world by caesarean section and probably survive.

And Harrigan, who escaped a possible 25-year sentence for manslaughter, he faces a maximum of seven years for dangerous driving and a maximum of 14 years for perverting the course of justice.

The company director must be some piece of work. Evidence was given that before he fled the carnage, fled the accident scene, he continued hurling abuse at his injured victims. And then involved a workmate in a cover-up.

And in a tragic postscript: It was not the first time Ben Allen had felt the grief of a hit-run.

Eight years ago his own brother was killed in a similar accident.

Friday, September 27, 2002