( My letter to the Illinois Leader. )( Scott Thomas' personal reply. )Mr. Thomas,
thank you for sending a personal reply. I understand your concerns, since I am the son of a pastor. Early in life I became a born-again Christian by choice and conviction, although you know I came to different convictions in my adult life. I acknowledge that you want society to be safe in our decisions and you have admirable good intentions, as I did at that time.
Thank you specifically for asking such important questions in your letter. I'm pleased to report that scientific instrumentation verifies that in an advanced fetus, possessing distinct tissues, organs, limbs and other features that an embryo lacks, the lights are on and somebody's home. Did you not know we have the ability to detect the onset of brain waves and even the ability of third-trimester fetuses to learn? You and I agree that a nine-inch trip down the birth canal is not what bestows personhood. Even though the answer to your question is more of a months-long window than a single universal instant, that window has an obvious beginning and end: how can there be thoughts in an organism without brain cells?
This is why one may as well call a human corpse or human sperm a person, as call a human embryo a person. If we are to take the path you advise, we would have to extend human rights to sperms and eggs. They are not from a different species. They are not dead. That makes them "human life," but life in the biological and not biographical sense. If conception is the onset of personhood, why is it that an embryo will just sit there and become nothing if it doesn't implant in the womb wall? They can be kept in a petri dish for a while, or frozen alive, as can sperm and eggs. The morning-after pill, RU-286, merely prevents implantation of this speck.
Your example of an infant is very helpful to my case. As a father, you would surely agree that your infant can not rightfully claim the full human right of freedom. Human parents grant independence gradually through the teenage years. So you are already used to the idea that human rights come in degrees with age. An organism that has not yet grown its first brain cell is not capable of choosing, feeling, thinking, loving, suffering, and desiring. Only people can do that.
This proves that the excerpt you cite from the bible is legendary embroidery. I can't recall from memory of my bible studies and bible college whether or not John the Baptist was even far enough along in pregnancy to have developed limbs to jump with. I understand, from personal experience, that when one's idiosyncratic and arbitrary choice of which holy book to place one's faith in is called into question, this is an instant thought-stopper for a person of faith. I wonder what you would do if you were confronted with a Muslim, a Jew, or a Hindu who would quote their own holy book back at you as a thought stopper and telling you they would pray for you? It's really enough to make me weep when I think about humans not employing the only interface they have-- reasoning with each other. I'm sorry for my choice of phrase "moral incompetence" which obviously has hurt your feelings. Nevertheless, ethics is a skill of observation and reasoning, like arithmetic. And like a mathematical illiterate who only uses a calculator, you exempt yourself from having to practice moral reasoning by getting it out of a book. I really can't describe it any other way.
-Matt
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