In this age of genetic engineering, cloning, in vitro fertilizations and a host of other medical advances challenging our notions of what is possible, we are also challenged to consider whether the fact that we can do things means we should do them. Legislators are often pressed by their constituents into taking positions on such matters without the deeper issues underlying them being well-considered. Good intentions can often result in legislation that creates restrictions which, while solving one problem, may create others. Underneath all the political rhetoric, rigidities and posturing of pro-life, pro-choice, pro-restrictions, or pro-freedom partisans, the level of informed reasoning is often lacking.

Consider, for example, the legislation just signed into federal law to protect unborn babies from violence. No one could fail to feel sorrow when a pregnant woman is killed or hurt and her unborn child dies as a consequence, as in the Lacey Peterson case. Our sense of fairness wonders why the innocent must die, and our sense of moral outrage over the violence done to the woman is doubled.

It is a sad commentary, however that there seems to be a punitive, even vengeful element in creating legislation that extends the criminal protections afforded all citizens to unborn children., as if the best response to the tragic loss of life is to double the punishment to the perpetrator. Such a position will not bring back the deceased, nor will it redeem the criminal, who is likely to suffer a lifetime imprisonment, or even loss of life, for the crime against the mother alone. Sadly this punitive trend is especially fed by conservative Christians who are fond of quoting scriptures on behalf of the unborn to justify anti-abortion stances. It is revealing perhaps, that they selectively overlook the biblical proscriptions against seeking vengeance, despite the scriptural assertion that that is God’s prerogative alone. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay”. Self-appointed representatives of God are always prone to taking upon themselves the divine role. Wisdom observes that whether under the rubric of “As you sow, so shall you reap”,”For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction”, “what goes around comes around” or the law of karma, payback is part of the natural order. Yet from a spiritual point of view, if our motivation is to harm others (even in the name of righteousness to “justify” our revenge), we ourselves must eventually reap the rewards of our own cruelty, whether in this life or the next. There is a difference between dispassionately holding ourselves and others accountable for actions deemed cruel and unlawful, and taking our anger out on someone who has committed a crime.

Even if we assume that most of those who are passionate defenders of the unborn are not motivated by political self-interest, there is something problematic about the well-meaning defense of the unborn in the failure to distinguish between human life and personhood. That is compounded by the even more problematic fact that we are largely unconscious of how culturally programmed our notions of personhood are. This is not an insignificant issue, for our definitions of life, humanness and personhood are at the very core of the impetus to legislate solutions to moral issues. Cultural narcissism makes us all prone to simply assuming our definitions are universal, yet experience quickly shows that they are not.

There is a peculiar element in the rhetoric of the Christian Right defending the unborn that is consistent with religious scholar Karen Armstrong’s observation that fundamentalism is, paradoxically, both a modern phenomenon and a negative response to modernity and the fear of change. The Christian Conservatives, despite their generally anti-Darwinian stance, are opting for a “scientific” definition of human life beginning at conception, in lieu of a much longer standing spiritual notion. Such selective, and even opportunistic use of “modern” definitions in the defense of “traditional” values is symptomatic of the self-contradictory reasoning so often used to articulate them. Unfortunately, not all those who hold to “traditional values” would agree with the Christian Right’s interpretation. Traditionally, for example, most cultures have maintained that human personhood, begins not at conception, but when the soul enters the womb. Most ancient cultures- and some even today- claim this event takes place around the seventh month. This is, not coincidentally, the point at which medicine usually considers the fetus “viable extra utero”, or able to survive on its own without extraordinary measures. At that point, we are clearly dealing not only with life, but a human person. But what about before that? Where do we draw that line?

No one would reasonably argue that the fact that all human tissue contains DNA, the blueprint of individual personhood,, or that living cells containing that DNA can be removed from the body, means that mere tissue or cells are synonymous with personhood and the legal rights pertaining thereto. It would be absurd to claim that fingernail clippings or a drop of blood have feelings and emotional needs, and the many other attributes we ascribe to personhood, much less the legal rights accorded to U.S. citizens under the Constitution. To demand they be protected as if they were whole human beings with legal rights is irrational in the extreme.

There is something disturbingly out of balance when passions that run so high in defense of the unborn fail to be comparably moved by the plight of the born, and of the mothers and fathers who give them birth. Whatever one may feel about abortion, most people would not deny that unexpected and unsought pregnancies can sometimes create great suffering for the mother, and lead to a life of deprivation, poverty and dysfunction for both the child and its family. There is abundant evidence that children who are unwanted and uncared for suffer horribly. They most definitely have feelings and needs that a tissue sample or cluster of living cells does not. Yet some people would do little or nothing to meet the unwanted child’s needs while insisting, on legal protections for the tissue, in the name of religion. It is hard to simply put such things to a vote. Greater discernment is needed.

Democracy may be based on majority rule, but the majority is not, in fact, always right. The majority has believed numerous things as absolute truths that have subsequently been disproven. The world is not flat. The Earth is not the center of the solar system or the universe, white men can jump, and not all people who have dark skin have a natural sense of rhythm. Though some sincerely religious types, or the politicians who rely on their votes, might rejoice at the legal ambiguity created by this new legislation, or find in it an opportunity to advance a particular agenda, others might understandably be offended with equally valid moral conviction.

The problem with legislative approaches to such matters in a pluralistic society is that it is difficult to arrive at consensus when different cultural backgrounds have divergent definitions of who we are and when we become it. The Constitution defines the legal rights offered to both citizens and alien residents. Citizenship is awarded at birth, not at conception, and residency is likewise a post-partum definition. By creating legislation that protects unborn children as separate from their mothers, Congress in essence, confers full-fledged legal personhood on that fetus, from zygote to full-term, despite its stage of development, with the rights implicit in citizenship or residency. This is ill advised.

All religions hold that life is sacred. Yet not all agree on the primacy of the individual. The Conservatives are not all wrong- for there are surely aspects of modernity that have not served us well. In acknowledging the sanctity of life and the integrity of personhood there is a basis of common humanity that need not be polarized by media hype and political self interest. The reality is, however, that we humans can relate to a near term fetus much more as a person, responsive to our own voices and actions, than to a cluster of cells that has interrupted a woman’s menstrual cycle and signals the beginnings of a pregnancy. Common sense, reason and global precedent suggest that distinguishing between embryo and person, without the sentimentality of presuming who and what that embryo may eventually or optimally become, would clarify a great deal. This would have a positive effect on women’s rights, child rights, and even the criminal’s rights not to be tried or punished for the same crime twice.


Robert H. Stucky is the Executive Director of Faith In Diversity Institute.

Copyright © 2004 by Faith In Diversity Institute