Jason notes the AP story on the Abortion Task Force (forgive my parochialism, but let me link to the Aberdeen American News version). I want to note the rhetoric of Sen. Adelstein, who seems to have missed a biology class or two when in school. Here is what the AP says about Sen. Adelstein.
In addition, [Sen. Adelstein claimed] the report is mistaken when it asserts that it cannot be doubted that an unborn child is a whole human being from the time of conception, Adelstein said. He tried unsuccessfully to amend that statement to reflect that the idea is held only by those of some religious beliefs.
''That's a religious belief,'' Adelstein said. ''I said on the record that as a Jew, I not only doubt but I do not believe it to be true. This is a religious belief and nothing more.''
If it is not human life, pray what is it, Senator? Is the belief that it is human life merely a religious belief? First, one could look to the NRO postings of Robert George here, here, and here in which the discussion turns on what biologically happens at conception. The context of the postings are regarding an argument with John Pohoretz over the origins of human life. In the first post, George asks the question of where we should go to answer the question of "When does the life of a human begin?" The answer is not to religous texts, but:
[W]e go to the standard texts of modern human embryology and developmental biology---for example, the texts by Keith Moore and T.V.N. Persaud; Bruce M. Carlson; Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller; and William J. Larsen. When we consult these works, we find little or nothing in the way of scientific mystery or dispute. The texts tell the same story and answer the key question in the same way. Anyone who wishes to know when he or she as a distinct living member of the species Homo sapiens came into existence need only open any of these books and look up the answer.
The answer these texts give is that we all became biologically distinct human beings at conception. A breathtaking approach to this topic is by Walker Percy, trained as a medical doctor and who later became a National Book Award winning novelist. In 1981 he penned this definitive piece about the denial of the "pro-choice" movement of an obvious fact: human life begins at conception (take note, by the way, of his pointed and mostly accurate jabs at the religious right). Here is Percy:
I further submit that it is a commonplace of modern biology, known to every high school student and no doubt to you the reader as well, that the life of every individual organism, human or not, begins when the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with the chromosomes of the ovum to form a new DNA complex that thenceforth directs the ontogenesis of the organism.
Such vexed subjects as the soul, God, and the nature of man are not at issue. What we are talking about and what nobody I know would deny is the clear continuum that exists in the life of every individual from the moment of fertilization of a single cell.
There is a wonderful irony here. It is this: The onset of individual life is not a dogma of the church but a fact of science. How much more convenient if we lived in the 13th century, when no one knew anything about microbiology and arguments about the onset of life were legitimate. Compared to a modern textbook of embryology, Thomas Aquinas sounds like an American Civil Liberties Union member. Nowadays it is not some misguided ecclesiastics who are trying to suppress an embarrassing scientific fact. It is the secular juridical-journalistic establishment.
It is not, Sen. Adelstein, a holding of "some religions" that life begins at conception; it is a holding of science to which some religions happen concur. Perhaps Sen. Adelstein can retreat to the John Kerry position that it is not humans who have rights, but "persons," and not every human is a person. That has the virtue of being consistent, although it has the vice of attacking the idea of human dignity that is at the heart of natural rights thinking.
There is another point to be made here. Sen. Adelstein contends that as a Jew he does not believe that life begins at conception. Fine, although as I have just indicated this means that if anyone is imposing non-scientific religiousity on the people it is Sen. Adelstein. But this is beside the point. Let's imagine the question of when life begins is still at issue as a matter of medical science and the question can only be answered based on religious belief. Why does Sen. Adelstein's religious belief that life does not begin at conception get to trump the religious belief of others that life does begin at conception? Why do skeptics automatically trump believers? Given the immense import of what is at stake, namely the definition of human life, why should the public have to remain silent simply because the question is not totally settled? I have said it before and I bet I will say it again: the origins of life are at the heart of the natural rights thinking of the Declaration of Independence (which by the way, bases some of it's important conclusions on religious notions). As such, the question of when human life begins is justly a public question. It would be narrow minded to say that religious answers to this all important question are automatically ruled out of order. Must I point out again that the movements against slavery, for worker's rights, and for civil rights were religiously motivated? Perhaps Sen. Adelstein thinks those religious people should have shut up. Or is it that only religious people with whom he disagrees should shut up? If so, how illiberal of him.
Sen. Adelstein simply argues that religious arguments to which he assents (life does not begin at conception) are legitimate, while religious arguments from which he dissents (life does begin at conception) are not. I think the shallowness of his argument is transparent, even though it took me multiple paragraphs to make the point.
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