What comes to mind when you hear the word “unborn”? Do you picture those charming images of the dancing, smiling, thumb-sucking foetus on the 3D scan? Maybe you imagine a microscopic clump of undifferentiated cells that might grow into a human being?

Or do you think, “oh no, God-botherers, militant wimmin, placards, rosary beads, referendums, gruesome leaflets, hysterical marches, pro-choice, pro-life — bad enough to be re-living the 1980s recessionary days without going back there, thanks very much”?

Well, tough, because “back there” is exactly where we’re going, thanks to a new development in this fraught debate, and to another one that’s imminent. Last week the governing body of University College Cork (UCC) voted to allow research on embryonic stem cells. They exist in the very early stages of the development of life and are known as pluripotent cells because they have the capacity to develop into any organ or tissue in the body. Naturally, their interest to medical science is boundless.

UCC has been heavily criticised for its decision and yet the college is only seeking to impose strict guidelines in an area that is glaringly unregulated in this country.

Until now, any individual researcher in UCC was free to import embryonic stem cells for scientific study on a unilateral basis. From now on, such research will be rigorously policed by new regulations regarding the sourcing of the cells, the validity of the work and the scientific and ethical issues raised by every single application for such a project.

The actual embryos involved will have been destroyed before they arrive at the UCC laboratories but if the college authorities hoped they’d also outsourced the most contentious element of this work, they were wrong.

The Pro-Life Campaign and the Catholic church are mobilising opposition to the initiative, and there is a scientific basis to argue that the need for embryonic stem-cell research has been overtaken by recent advances. Just last year, scientists developed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are practically identical to the natural version.

Supporters of the use of the genuine article argue the potential of the true embryonic cells has not been fully explored, in part because crucial work in America has been impeded for the duration of the Bush presidency.

At the heart of the gathering storm, though, is the one question we have been fruitlessly and acrimoniously debating in this country for the past quarter of a century — when, precisely, does life begin?

Back in 1983, voters were fairly certain what “unborn” meant. Even though test-tube babies were already a reality, nobody was thinking much about blobs of cells in a Petri dish, but of fully formed foetuses whose tiny, life-sized feet were replicated in those lapel badges worn by pro-lifers.

Along the way we reached the shaky consensus that life began at implantation, which permitted IVF treatment to proceed. Unimplanted, fertilised eggs weren’t technically “unborn” because you needed a womb to be unborn, and an uneasy truce was reached with the pro-life perspective. So many lives were made possible by IVF that there was a logical inconsistency in objecting to it because of the inevitable embryonic wastage.

But now the UCC move has thrust that issue right under the noses of both sides of the argument, and rendered practically inevitable the referendum that nobody wants, the one that will decide once and for all whether human life begins at fertilisation.

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