Here is what the most-used embryology textbook in our nation's medical schools, The Developing Human says:
Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatazoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to produce a single cell—a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.
Might I suggest the science on this question is settled? That there is broad consensus? That those who disagree are Deniers?
Yet first the Speaker of the House and now the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee (and liberals generally) keep trying to muddle the settled science with religion.
I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it's a moment of conception. There is a debate in our church, as Cardinal Egan would acknowledge, that's existed. Back in "Summa Theologia," when Thomas Aquinas wrote "Summa Theologia," he said there was no--it didn't occur until quickening, 40 days after conception. How am I going out and tell you, if you or anyone else that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith?That life should begin at some point after it begins is a logical impossibility.
No, what has been debated in the Church is the question of ensoulment, about which the state has nothing to say, not life. I suppose the ACLU would argue the state doesn't even know if there is a soul! At the level of politics, we are not talking about souls --which are a matter of faith-- we are talking about lives and when the state will protect and recognize the inalienable rights of a human being.
It is proof that America is not a racist country that a black man can say the answer to that question is above his pay grade and not see a problem.
