Church Voices

The most important issue weighing into who gets my vote in presidential elections is that of abortion. Let me just say on the onset that the legality of abortion is logically posterior the morality of abortion. Only after abortion is shown morally justified or unjustified should its legal status be determined. Furthermore, deciding the morality of abortion is fundamentally a matter of philosophical debate, not scientific (even though scientific considerations factor heavily into one’s philosophical position).

The key issue in the abortion debate is, of course, the status of the unborn; more specifically, the personhood of the fetus. Articulating and defending adequate criteria for personhood is the task of the philosopher. Indeed, the entire concept of personhood is philosophical. No scientific evidence could establish personhood per se. What scientific evidence that is relevant to the abortion debate, however, is contemporary biomedical evidence of human characteristics sufficient for personhood (brain-wave activity, complete genetic blueprint, etc).

And regarding such evidence, let me just say that no rational, sane person can now deny its overwhelming verdict. In the words of the world-famous French geneticist Jerome LeJeune, “to accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion.” Embryonic and genetic research has conclusively demonstrated human characteristics sufficient for personhood are present as early as the moment of conception itself. To say, therefore, that “the human fetus is not a human person until the morning that the mother goes into labor,” as the high court ruled in South Korea last year, is complete scientific poppycock. As one author put it, such an understanding “…is so biologically ignorant that I would call it medieval, except that would be to insult the medievals!” Rather than insult the medievals, therefore, I’ll just call such an understanding premodern, outmoded, and archaic.

In light of such evidence, the law desperately needs to be amended. The inconsistency is simply mind-boggling: In the one courtroom you have the fetus denounced as human yet, in another, you have a man convicted of double-homicide for murdering his pregnant wife. In one hospital room you have doctors vigorously trying to save a five-month old preemie yet, in another, you have them heartlessly aborting a nine-month old, full-term baby. You have someone vote to end the War in Iraq because of the number of U.S. deaths (3700 and climbing) yet, flip his ballot over and vote for abortion (number of abortions in the in U.S. since Iraq War began: 6,286,671 and climbing).

Check out some of these statistics. They’ll blow your mind.