I always love this. Ask a smart pro-lifer to defend his position, and what does he do? Well, he points to the fact that the unborn child is self-evidently a human baby, a young member of the species homo sapiens, as anyone can see for himself just by looking. For very early embryos that have not yet developed human form, he talks about biology, unique DNA, and development, making it clear that this embryo is an undeveloped member of the species homo sapiens on biological grounds. Not a word about ensoulment is necessary or assumed. At all.
Then in comes the pro-choicer. _He_ wants to talk religion. _He_ wants to talk about ensoulment. _He_ wants to drag in questions about Divine motivations. In fact, he would _much_ rather do this than address the sober argumentative points the pro-lifer has raised.
Now, it is true that most pro-lifers _do in fact believe_ that the unborn child has a soul from the moment of conception. It does not follow that the pro-lifer depends on this belief as a _premise_ in the argument he makes to the pro-choicer. But the pro-choicer drags it in. He then triumphantly points out, as though he is doing something clever, that he doesn’t agree with this proposition about ensoulment.
Then he tells the pro-lifer that he has no right to “insist on” a “religious” proposition in making public policy proposals and arguments.
But the pro-lifer didn’t do that.
Faugh.
Update: I sometimes really wonder if the excuse-makers are all on one mailing list and someone mails out the latest obfuscation stratetgy. Over at Cathoic Key blog, is an entry about Archbishop Raymond Burke on the appointment pro-abortion Catholic Sebelius. Note he appeals to natural moral law and not religion. That didn’t stop someone from commenting:
Some members of the hierarchy are sowing discord among the faithful by failing to take into account the difference between the embryo’s condition before and after it is ensouled. Prior to ensoulment, the embryo is not a person. Aborting it without sufficient reason may be gravely immoral but it is not homicide. The rhetoric about murdering babies may apply to the ensouled fetus, but it does not apply to the developing embryo or fetus before it has been ensouled. The Church can teach that killing it is immoral from the moment of conception, but in a nation functioning according to civil law we should not demand that Catholic legislators try to incorporate our view about the immorality of early abortion into the civil law since it is not homicide.
Faugh indeed.
Thanks for the post!
I wonder about that commentator: Is there some official web site where it tells us when the “embryo or fetus” is ensouled? Does it get updated? Y’know, “Newsflash: God today told our reporters that in 2010 He plans to begin ensouling human beings at 14 weeks post-conception. The previous policy was to ensoul at 14 minutes, but a representative for God said, ‘We felt that this did not give women enough time to choose. We hope that the new practice will be recognized for the reconciling move we mean it to be.’”