No, in fact there is a massive difference between the two, such as the fact that a sperm is not complete and will die after a few days, where as the unborn child is a completely new human who has the capacity to live a long life.

Many will have seen the argument appear on social media recently that there is no difference between an unborn child and human sperm.

It is a natural assumption to dismiss this argument as some sort of adolescent joke, but given its frequent use by the pro-choice campaign one must imagine that there are actually people out there who believe this. And despite science it seems there are.

In fact in 1990, the late American astronomer, Carl Sagan, made a philosophical defence of abortion in an article he wrote with his third wife, Ann Druyan, for Parade magazine. One of their key arguments hinges on the belief that there is no moral difference between killing an embryo and killing a sperm or egg cell. Sagan goes on to suggest that if abortion is murder, then masturbation must be “mass murder.”

The main problem with this conclusion is that it ignores the fundamental difference between a sperm and an egg prior to fertilisation, and the zygote which results through fertilisation. The difference is genetic.

Sperm and egg cells in and of themselves are not complete. If left alone sperm will die after a few days and egg cells less even still, never developing into anything other than what they are. The sperm shares the genetic code of the man, the egg shares the genetic code of the woman. It is only in combination, when the 23 chromosomes from the father join the 23 chromosomes from the mother, through fertilisation, that a new, biologically distinct human being comes into existence. This one fertilised cell, in fact, contains all the information necessary for a lifetime of human growth. All that makes up the adult is present as the ovum and the sperm are united—the whole genetic code!

No matter what someone believes about the ethics of abortion, the fundamental differences between a sperm, an egg and an embryo are biologically obvious and undisputed. If a repeal campaigner tries to argue that abortions should be legal in Ireland because the procedure only kills sperm, then please educate them on this grossly untrue fact.