Life Begins at Birth, Not Conception
When does life begin? It seems like a relatively easy question to answer depending upon various factors. As we age, we’re often told that life begins at 21, or 30, or 40. But when human life really begins from a legal viewpoint is not the same as when it begins from a biological viewpoint, which is not necessarily the same as when life begins from a religious viewpoint, which is not the same as when life begins from a political viewpoint.
In the old days, life began when the baby was born and started crying after being slapped on its bottom by the obstetrician or midwife and began breathing on its own, no longer dependent upon the umbilical cord from its mother that supplied it with oxygen, nutrients, and everything else to keep a fetus alive while it was in the mother’s womb. In the controversial 1973 United States Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Roe v. Wade, justice Harry Blackmun wrote for the majority that a fetus is not legally a person.
Currently, there is an effort by “pro-life” (or really, anti-abortion) groups to amend the various state constitutions to read that human life begins at conception, that is, the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg, and that from such moment, the fertilized egg is a person and is therefore entitled to all the rights and protections of the United States Constitution (and state Constitution as well).
If the law were changed to read that a person comes into being and is entitled to all of the legal rights and protections accorded all living persons the moment of fertilization (conception), that would raise serious questions regarding the use of intra-uterine devices (IUDs), birth control pills, the “morning after” pill, in vitro fertilization, and stem cell research. The fact is that a considerable number of fertilized eggs do not get embedded in the uterus and are expelled with the woman’s next menstrual cycle.
Also, suppose a law was passed saying human life begins at conception and the woman suffers a miscarriage two or three months into the pregnancy. Would the woman’s conduct be scrutinized to make sure she was living a healthy lifestyle and didn’t do anything to cause or contribute to the miscarriage, and if she did, could she be charged with murder if it can be proved that her conduct resulted in a person’s (i.e., a fetus’s) death? This is, of course, an absurd notion, but it only goes to highlight the absurdity of a law that says “personhood” arises the moment of conception.
Getting a law passed that “personhood begins at conception” may not be as far-fetched as most of us would like it to be. In 2008, Colorado became the first state to put on its ballot the issue of whether life begins at conception, which lost at the polls 73 % to 27%. In 2009, the North Dakota House of Representatives passed such a measure, but the state Senate rejected it. In Montana, the state Senate passed a bill calling for a constitutional amendment on personhood, but the bill died in a House committee after a tied partisan vote. Anti-abortionists are trying to get an amendment to the California state constitution passed that would provide that “[t]he term ‘person’ applies to all living human beings from the beginning of their biological development . . ..”
All of the efforts of the “pro-life” movement to change the definition of personhood as beginning at the very moment of conception is really just a thinly veiled backdoor attempt at getting abortion banned altogether. However, as controversial as it may be, Roe v. Wade has stood the test of time for more than 35 years as a sensible, reasonable, and constitutional approach governing a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy and should remain the law of the land.
Whatever your personal feelings, morals, or religious beliefs may be about abortion, whether to get an abortion is a decision that should be made by a pregnant woman with the advice of her doctor. Extending the definition of a “person” to include a fertilized egg or an unborn fetus could result in unwanted and bizarre legal rulings. The definition of a person as someone that has been born alive has been the guiding rule for hundreds of years, dating back to the old English common law, and it should remain that way, regardless of how a group of religious zealots feel.
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