Sir, - On Morning Ireland recently, Dr Tony Walsh, of the Marian Simms IVF clinic in Dublin, referred to the human embryo as the "template of human life". I submit that this term is misleading. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th ed.) defines the meaning of "template" in biochemistry as "the molecular pattern governing the assembly of protein", while the Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary defines a template as "a macro-molecule such as DNA, RNA or messenger RNA, the structure of which serves as a guide for the assembly of nucleic acids and polypeptides".
In other words, a template is a pattern from which other structures are made. This implies that the template itself is not the definitive form, but leads to something else. In the context of human embryos, it is as if the embryo is not fully human and acts only as a model of what will come later.
This term is thus inadmissible as a description of the embryo, which already is a genetically distinct individual and fully human. - Yours, etc.,
Liz Donnelly, B.Sc. Lansdowne Terrace, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.