There is nothing that can define human life as being sacred without including all life. As soon as you draw that sort of argument into the picture then we all must become vegetarians. But, wait, vegetables are life, too. And, like all life, they have the same basic structure to their DNA we humans have. We won’t be able to eat anything that does no die a natural death. And we’re not equipped to survive that.

Going the other direction, just when does the spark of humanity come alive? This is also a point of disagreement. On religious grounds the moment of conception is selected with purely mystical basis by Evangelical Christians, among others. At the other end the infant must survive a substantial time before it is considered to be human in Islam. A scientist might look for when unmistakable features that distinguish humans from animals appear in the fetus/child. Hands may not qualify here. When can you distinguish a human from another primate?

If the legal arguments start running into those directions you may find the ruling from the courts more consonant with the Islamic doctrine than the “moment of conception” doctrine or even the “before the moment of conception” doctrine of those religions that also eschew contraception.

This is a rather tough issue to adjudicate. We, as a nation, have a requirement to adjudicate with purely secular criteria in this regard as in all others. That means science will appear in the court room for this. And the results will surely disappoint those who force the issue into court on evangelical motives.

My darkest suspicions suggest it would be a really good idea for evangelicals to work to keep the issue OUT of court. I figure they would lose a month to as much as a year on the basis of “the spark that distinguishes man from the animals” arguments. (And some apparent humans never do seem to develop that spark. What about them?)

Winning would be cool, I admit. But look to the potential downside before jumping into the legal pool. Legislating the value of PI does not work.

{o.o}

Life does begin at conception. But we never have treated all life identically.

I – and many other people in our country – simply do not think that a few week old embryo is deserving of the same protections as a 2 year old – or a 25 week old fetus.

I also do not think that we really wish to return to a time when all women, irrespective of their religious or political beliefs – would have to resort to an illegal medical procedure if they wished to get a first trimester abortion. At least, I certainly do not.

pbundy on February 18, 2009 at 7:48 PM

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But this is essentially the problem. You and these mysterious others represent the Romans leaving their children to the elements. We, in favor of life, represent the Christians and Jews retrieving the pagan children to protect their lives from selfish parents.
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To answer the statistical equivalent of genocide with supposed tragedy is a hollow argument. If these 50 million children were not murdered there never would have been a need for cheap labor to fill any perceived gaps in the labor force. But promoting the slaughtering 3 out of every 5 Black children since the 70′s sure proved to fulfill the legacy of Sanger, no matter what the intention.

strangelet on February 19, 2009 at 1:54 PM

A pity that you seem to be immune to its effect.

Of course, since misogny is now acceptable in the US, we might as well declare women property of their husbands or fathers and be done with it.

Now do you really think Hillary means it?

Get real
Jamson64 on February 18, 2009 at 7:01 PM

It doesn’t matter if she means it or not. I mean it – and I am merely giving credit to someone who made a simple statement I happen to agree with.

and at the same time take away our religions….including Freedom of Religion and 2nd Amendments……all of which are in the USA Consti.

strangelet on February 18, 2009 at 10:26 PM

You’re dumb—and a liar. Pew did a survey of the Gen Y. They’re just as pro-life as their parents, and that’s while they’re in their 20s. Douthat think this could be the most pro-life generation yet. Are they more liberal gay rights, yes, but not on abortion. I’m sorry if pro-aborts like yourself can’t handle that and needs to twist facts.

No way.

My OPINION, is do not provide my tax dollars to agencies/organizations that promote abortion. Don’t let douletalk about the rules of seperation of funds fool ya’.
See latest news for how effective our bloated govt. is at enforcing the regs.

If you wanta kill somebody, just don’t make me pay for it.

WashJeff on February 18, 2009 at 3:36 PM

riverrat in va

That’s come up more than once, where one parent wants to implant the embryo, and the other, not wanting to be burdened with the almost certain resulting child, protests greatly.

unclesmrgol on February 18, 2009 at 9:02 PM

Interesting quandary you’ve linked to. Aside from the question of when rights apply to the unborn is the issue of family stability. If giving birth to the embryo by the single mother against the father’s will creates two unstable families maybe society isn’t better off.

Note that the argument about “parents’ consent” is remarkably similar to antebellum laws (the Black Codes) regulating the beating of slaves. Slaves cannot be beaten without the permission of their master, and if their master beats them, the master cannot beat them to death, unless such beating which resulted in death was light or moderate in nature.

unclesmrgol on February 18, 2009 at 8:44 PM

The men and women who were slaves were able to function apart from their masters. Children and embryos can not. We rely on parents to make sacrifices and exercise good judgment when raising kids, because we know the state will do a poor job as a substitute.

I think you agree that this legislation probably gives an embryo the right to be born-certainly if it is conceived naturally and in the womb. However, a frozen embryo would logically have the same rights.

Could the state compel a mother to be implanted? Maybe, since it would compel a mother who has just conceived to carry the child for 9 months. Practically, it’s more likely that the state could take custody of frozen embryos.

Emancipated to where? Keeping a woman from terminating a pregnancy is one thing, but forcing her to carry a frozen embryo rather than allowing it to remain where it is, is something else altogether.

Esthier on February 18, 2009 at 5:40 PM

Agreed. But killing the frozen embryo isn’t cool either.

The frozen embryo has (in my mind) all the rights and property interests that a child has in their parents’ estate. That’s come up more than once, where one parent wants to implant the embryo, and the other, not wanting to be burdened with the almost certain resulting child, protests greatly.

For example, childbirth was a much greater risk in the 19th Century and doctors delivering women of their children often faced the choice of saving the mother or saving the child. If the unborn child possessed the same fundamental right of self-preservation as did his or her mother, upon what basis could the choice be made? Killing the child to save the mother would violate a fundamental right and visa versa.

You could recognize an exception to the unborn child’s fundamental right to self-preservation to facilitate the salvation of the mother, but to do so would set a regretable precedent that maybe the right to self-preservation was not so fundamental after all.

So, the compromise. Until the child was no longer a potential mortal threat to the mother, i.e., upon live birth, the child possessed no rights. The mother was the only one of the two with a fundamental right to self-preservation, and the state criminalized abortion, treating it differently than murder, to protect the mother and child without implicating the murder statute. Only, in 1973, Justice Blackmun held that state legislature’s couldn’t make such a compromise.

Which sets up the attempt to recognize personhood in the unborn child by the North Dakota House, which creates problems all of its own. Now, with personhood and full fundamental rights established in the unborn child, any injury to the child, from a fertilized egg to a zygote to an embryo to a fetus, may be subject to criminal prosecution or tort action, including against the mother herself. This legislation sets up the very irreconcilable difference sought to be addressed by the original compromise.

This is why the question put to then candidate Obama was so insightful: When does a baby obtain human rights? If you say at conception, you establish constitutional protection for the unborn child, but you clearly also add all kinds of legal problems as a consequence. The original compromise was a good one and the Supreme Court simply acted like a super legislature in finding that there was no compelling interest in making such a compromise.

As an originalist, the question to me comes down to what the Framers meant by “person.” I bet they would certainly have included older unborn children. But, supposing they had our present state of knowledge, would they have extended personhood all the way to conception? I can’t say.

edshepp on February 18, 2009 at 8:41 PM

Does each amendment to the Constitution then require a reset on “originality”? Certainly the Fourteenth Amendment does.

The Constitution is worded to confer natural United States citizenship solely to born people; however, the individual States are free to extend further rights beyond those in the Constitution to their people.

California, for example, has a fetal murder law on the books.

Emancipated to an environment where it can gestate. Perhaps a lawyer representing the embryo finds a woman willing to carry it. Does the embryo then have a right to be born independent of the parents’ consent?

dedalus on February 18, 2009 at 5:47 PM

Yes.

Note that the argument about “parents’ consent” is remarkably similar to antebellum laws (the Black Codes) regulating the beating of slaves. Slaves cannot be beaten without the permission of their master, and if their master beats them, the master cannot beat them to death, unless such beating which resulted in death was light or moderate in nature.

Buried in all that is the concept that a human viewed as property has a few rights. Not many, but a few, some of which are quite fuzzy, even after death.