What Science Says About the Creation of Babies At Conception
The Alabama Supreme Court used a case involving frozen embryos to claim that a zygote (fertilized egg) was a child. The Court stated the defense of this decision in religious language. It argued that human beings have borne God's image from the moment of conception. However, from a scientific standpoint, pregnancy does not even begin until a few days after a zygote has attached itself to the uterine wall. Science tells us even that does not immediately produce a child but a potential one.
Consistent with the Alabama Court ruling is the idea that at conception, God places a soul in a zygote, making that zygote a person. However, science also tells us the body rejects about a third of all the zygotes. Would those souls be flushed down the toilet along with the zygotes that presumably contain them? Would God then be the greatest abortionist ever? What does this tell us about the intelligence of God? As should be clear from the above questions, the idea of the immediate ensoulment of zygotes makes no religious sense except when science is ignored. Concurrently, the idea that a zygote is a person becomes nonsensical.
The most important distinction between religion and science is that science is self-correcting. An error made by science will eventually be corrected; however, a damaging idea based on religion has no such mechanism for correction. Indeed, it can lead to even more extreme ideas depending on who's proposing and who's listening.
The assumption that Life begins at conception has many consequences for enforcing any accompanying laws. Scientific solutions are no longer available when religion becomes the basis of law. For law based on religion, the question becomes, what is next? What else can we expect from religious extremists? At what point will they decide that the legal response to the destruction of frozen embryos is murder? Would this then demand the death penalty? Will some extremists eventually decide that women should be penalized for the loss of zygotes that occurs naturally? Some religious zealots have long held that morning-after pills should be banned, medical abortions at any time should be illegal, and contraception of any kind must be prohibited.
However, the idea that a zygote is a child is extreme for many of us. Laws based on this idea pose a grave threat to many people. Already, some women are serving prison sentences for infractions of the many new abortion laws. Still, equally heinous, some of these women were accused of abortion when they suffered a miscarriage. Others must wait for abortions even when the fetus is already dead. Still, others are forced to delay aborting an ectopic pregnancy. This is when a fertilized egg implants itself outside the womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes. Such pregnancies never produce a child, but if treatment is delayed, they can lead to serious health consequences for the woman. Yet, while a woman is in prison for any of the above, her husband and other children receive economic and psychological injuries.
The problem with legal attempts to control women’s health care and family size choices is that such societal oversight cannot be accomplished without horrendous consequences to millions of women, men, and children. Religious zealots see only their goal of ensuring that all potential children are born. They cannot grasp the horrible mess they make for so many people by trying to accomplish this goal through laws and punishments.
Unbridled Religion can make up all kinds of fantastical stories. But trying to legislate based upon some of these stories can be disastrous to all of us. Those versions of Christianity based upon the sayings of Jesus are not clamoring for strict abortion laws. These are versions of Christianity that put people first, while other versions turn this on its head by inventing ideas that do the opposite. Only the former version can be compatible with science and often yield legislation consistent with science.
The essence of science is competition. In science, scientists compete with each other to find evidence of how things work. A scientist who cannot demonstrate their claims must rethink or find better evidence. Otherwise, their claims will be dismissed and perhaps ridiculed. Thus, science will increase our understanding of the world in the long run. However, believers making religious claims argue the truth as they see it but seldom have any evidence to support them.
Societal law is also evidence-based. Should a law generate unexpected consequences, it can be modified or rescinded. However, religious law is far less malleable and, in the long term, may often have to acquiesce to science. In the meantime, things can get ugly.
Thus, no court should base its rulings on religious ideas unless those ideas are compatible with current science. Otherwise, the ruling will likely cause problems for persons covered by it and may conflict with someone else’s religion
.