Professor Schaff engages with a reader in his recent post on the question of whether an embryo is in fact a human being. I join with my colleague on this question.
I presume that those on both sides of this question agree that there are such things as human beings; that human beings have certain inalienable rights; that among these rights are the right to life and liberty. The right to chose would seem to rest on the latter. Human beings are mortal creatures, each of whom comes into being and comes to an end, at least in this world. So when does a moral person, a human being with rights, first come to be?
Some defenders of abortion have argued that this happens only with the advent of a recognizable personality. That occurs somewhere around the first or second year of life. This solves the problem of abortion, but has the unfortunate consequence that a new born baby isn't a person and therefore can't be murdered. The argue thus reduces to an absurdity: you or I could just as certainly have been killed when we were one day old as when were were first learning to say "want juice." No one would have made such a silly argument if there were any way to fix the beginning of personhood at birth or some prior stage of development short of conception.
It is perfectly obvious, in light of modern biology, that an individual human being comes into being at conception. Consider this question: what color was Sherlock Holmes hair? I do not remember if Arthur Conan Doyle ever answered that question, but he could have answered it any way he liked because Holmes did not really exist. I do exist, and so does Professor Schaff and his anonymous interlocutor. And even if all three of us were died orange or shaved bald, we would still be blond or brunet or what have you because our hair color depends on our genes not on our appearance. Now: when did the question of my hair color first have an answer? It was at the moment of my conception, when my mother's and father's genes were sorted out to produce a unique cell, with all the genetic information and the machinery to develop into fully functioning adult in time.
So we have this single cell, back in 1957, about the time that Sputnik was launched. It existed. It was genetically distinct from my mom. No one could say yet what color my eyes or hair would be, but if they had said something, it would have been true or false. So I was in fact, at that early moment, some kind of being. And what kind of being? Not a canine being, or a bovine being, but a human being.
The question then is whether I had the same rights, at that moment, as any other human being. My ancient faith teaches me that all human beings are created equal. That faith is frequently challenged. It was challenged by Judge Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. But I hold to it, as Lincoln did, and so I cannot agree with Professor Schaff's anonymous interlocutor.
Recent Comments