That is the only way of interpreting religious bigot Eugene Robinson’s statement.
So, I mean, the only thing I can figure out, Rachel, is that’s based on a wrong and frankly insane belief that a fertilized egg is a fully formed person and has personhood and that, you know, preventing the implantation of that egg is some-, is murder. I don’t, you know, it baffles me as to what other explanation there could be. They can be sincerely mad on this, on this subject, I think, and maybe they are.
If Eugene Robinson would like to tell us where human life actually begins, then we’re all ears. Hopefully he can find as clear-cut a milestone as the point when the distinct genetic code of the individual comes into being to mark the beginning of human life. Otherwise he’s merely spouting off an opinion that is at least as “insane” as the bright-line one that he declares to be “mad”.
Please note – I’m not getting into the question of ensoulment. We cannot prove anything one way or another there. But if we start excluding members of the species homo sapiens sapiens from the definition of human, I cannot help but recognize that this puts us on the slippery slope to Auschwitz.
Is it just Catholicsm whose devoted are nuts, or are faithful Baptists, Muslims and Jews nuts as well?
What is a “fully formed human”?
The author of the article—John Adams, of the Washington Post—suggests that since we can’t empirically prove the principle of ensoulment, let’s just go ahead an err on the side that says there is a soul that is responsible for person-hood. Well, take the other track—erring on the side that says there is no thing called a ‘soul’, in anything other that figurative term. Even if there was a soul, what would happen to it when a fetus was aborted? Would it die along with the body? In Sunday School, when I was a child, we were taught that the soul is immortal, and when it passes from a life in this world, it goes on to live with it’s father is heaven. It that’s true, and it doesn’t die, where is the murder—can you murder a mass of protoplasm, when the soul, the spark of life, continues to live?
Oh, but it’s murder in God’s eye’s—breaking one of God’s laws. Well, some of us don’t believe that. Murder is a human law that was created by men so they wouldn’t go around killing their own tribesmen—which were needed when fighting members of other tribes. The wise governors of the tribes started calling it God’s law, because that gave it more authority and importance.
So what’s the importance of killing a person? It takes away ones hopes and dreams, and the memories of that person in the minds of those who knew them. In other words, the importance to the person who is kill is their self-awareness (self-consciousness). When you kill somebody, you take away everything they could have been. How can you murder something that’s not even aware of it own existence?
And the cognitive wiring for consciousness doesn’t even begin until 24 to 28 weeks—and that’s only when it begin, not when it’s completed. Do I hear echoes of Rowe vs Wade?