The blogosphere is a bit abuzz about Joe Biden’s appearance yesterday on Meet the Press where he said that, according to his faith, life begins at conception. Pro-life folks are pointing and yelling “A-ha!” and pro-choice folks are in a bit of a pout and looking for Biden to revise his remarks.
The problem wasn’t so much with which answer, because I believe that Biden at least started to answer the question he was asked. It wasn’t a particularly good answer, because he conflated his faith with the teachings of the church and, clearly, they’re in conflict. The real problem was that Tom Brokaw muffed the question. Rick Warren didn’t ask “Where does life begin?” he asked, “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?”.
That is a much different question and it requires a different answer. At this point, the question of when life begins is scientific and it’s basically been settled. Science says that human life begins at conception. There’s no real controversy to that except among those who want to muddle the definition of the word “life”. There can be no serious doubt, though, that at the point of conception, what exists is life, and human life at that.
Warren’s question is a much tougher question and neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden have even attempted to answer it. You have to engage your personal sense of morality and a certain sense of history as well to really tackle the question of when you apply human rights to a human being. Brokaw, whether he did it on purpose or not, let Biden off the hook big-time by not asking the more difficult, but more germane question.
Tags: Abortion, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Rick Warren, Tom Brokaw
I hate to contradict you outright, but science doesn’t say human life begins at conception. “Conception” is a fairly well-defined term, but “human” and “life” aren’t. So when you ask, “does human life begin at conception,” the scientific answer is, “what do you mean by human life?” It’s not a desire to muddle the definition–in fact, it’s the opposite. The definition is already muddled, and scientific inquiry seeks to clarify it. The everyday definitions you use are good enough for most situations you encounter, which leads you to think they’re clear and precise–but when you ask questions that are outside that scope, you can’t count on getting the obvious answer.
I’ll give you a sample: if we simply say “life” means ongoing cellular metabolism, and “human” means that cell (or cells) has 99% of its diploid DNA in common with every other human cell, then yes, absolutely, human life begins at conception. However, by those same definitions, a recent blood sample also qualifies as human life. You can certainly change your definition so that it includes the zygote and not the blood cells, but if you do that your definition won’t be a simple one any more, and there will be people who dispute your choices. My point is that a defining a word is like defining the borders of a country–science can give you a detailed map of the landscape, but it can’t tell you where the line is “supposed to” go. For that, we usually rely on some other branch of philosophy, and where to draw the line becomes a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact.
Mr. Science,
I appreciate the nuances involved in the scientific aspects of the question. I believe you are attempting to clarify this so that the arguement about life itself is not in question. I appluad you, sir.
However, let us not forget Jimmie’s point. The debate is whether a person’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness begins at the point of conception or not.
My view on this is simple. This is wholely a question of morality. Morality, of course, only exists because of God. There is no scientific equation to indicate the beginning of a person’s right to life, regardless of Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi’s commentary on the subject.
JG
joelgainesshow.com
Mr. Science guy – You are correct on the details. What I intended to say, which I also believe to be correct, is that when a human sperm fertilizes a human egg inside a human body, what exists at that point is a human life.
It is not the most precise definition that can be given but I think it’s the one that most folks intend when they say “life” in the context of this discussion. You are right that I need to take care to be more precise when I sling around the words “science says”.
Your point about where the line is “supposed” to be is the very heart of the discussion. Brokaw’s question is a different question from Warren’s and requires that we think differently.
Joel, I think the great sin of Roe v Wade was not that it legalized abortion but that it made it practically impossible for us to have a reasonable national discussion on whether unborn human beings are worthy of personhood or not.
Mr.Science Guy…
Why has the federal government made it illegal to destroy the egg of the Bald Eagle?
Is that a science question, suek? If so, I’m afraid I didn’t understand it as such.
I think what you’re pointing out is that the endangered species law applies to eagles and their eggs, but common criminal law (e.g. murder statutes) applies to humans only after birth. Am I on the right track?
I’m not Mr. Law Guy, but from my perspective, laws are frequently contradictory with each other, and often only tangentially related to facts. Trying to figure out why laws are written the way they are is a job for judges and historians, in my opinion.
I’ll make a guess, though my viewpoint on the law probably deserves no particular weight–the law protects Bald Eagles because of their scarcity; therefore it punishes any interference with their reproductive cycle. Human beings, on the other hand, are not scarce, so the laws that protect them are based on different precepts. If the laws governing human beings were to be philosophically consistent with the endangered species law, contraception would also be illegal.
It says to me that the Federal Government has decided that the embryo of the Bald Eagle is a Bald Eagle, and therefore has the same protection.
Your further point bases the protection on the scarcity issue. That in effect, removes the question from the science level and places into the realm of philosophy, since it then becomes a question of where our values are placed, not a question of when science says life begins.
Regardless of what science says, the Federal Government has said that an embryo at any stage is equivalent to an adult of that species. What is true of the Bald Eagle is true of the human – scarce or not.
Here’s an interesting discussion on the topic…
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ld.....91204.html