Absolutely
Is a pair of identical twins one human, or two? One soul, or two?
I’m going to go with 2 for both questions.
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Then a human life cannot begin at conception. You’ve pushed the time out at least 2 weeks.
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Somewhere between 25 and 50% of fertilized eggs never make it past the first month, and the mother is usually none the wiser. I don’t see any effort to decrease this natural abortion rate, nor do I see women testing to see if they terminated in the first month. I don’t see funerals for babies that died 1 week after conception. I think we already have a sliding scale for the transition between non-baby and baby.
There is also the practical side of the debate. Are people going to keep track of women’s pregnancies, and then report them to the police if they are suddenly not pregnant? Are we going to go back to the days of risky black market abortions for the poor, and “miscarriages” for the rich? Discrimination was rampant in the past when it came to abortions, with privileged classes having access to safe abortions under the guise of a miscarriage.
If we have a Venn diagram of all the aspects of morality, society, and justice, abortion sits right at the heart of the intersection between all of those considerations. Like you say, there really isn’t a simple answer.
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Numbers 5:11-31 is pretty simple…
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Right, I have encountered that criteria (where twins separate from a single zygote), thanks for reminding me. I think that’s a more specific and grounded position than conception.
OK, so if we say life/personhood occurs somewhere between 2-24 weeks after conception, does that have anything to do with the Kansas Supreme Court ruling at all?
The ruling (at least the summary and quotes from the NPR story) seem to indicate that abortion, in general, was considered a right according to the state’s Bill of Rights and that:
“The State may only infringe upon the right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy,” the ruling continued, “if the State has a compelling interest and has narrowly tailored its actions to that interest.”
So, I looked up the “compelling interest” language as I had heard that it had specific meaning in constitutional law. I found an article from the First Amendment Encyclopedia. In particular:
An interest is compelling when it is essential or necessary rather than a matter of choice, preference, or discretion.
…
Strict scrutiny, however, requires the government to demonstrate that it is using the most narrowly tailored, or least restrictive, means to achieve an interest that is compelling. Although not explicitly defined, “compelling” is obviously intended to be a higher interest than “legitimate” or “important”; some have described it as “necessary” or “crucial,” meaning more than an exercise of discretion or preference.Regulation vital to the protection of public health and safety, including the regulation of violent crime, the requirements of national security and military necessity, and respect for fundamental rights are examples of compelling governmental interests.
To me I think that this then goes back to my original points because I would think the state would have a compelling interest in ending of a human life (and the conflict that creates with the constitutional right to making medical decisions), if life and personhood were established. I think that at least makes the 2-23 weeks timeframe relevant.
For the government to have a compelling interest in an individual woman’s pregnancy, something about that person’s freedom to chose what she want to do with her body would need to be critical to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” How does an adult woman’s chose to have an abortion in say Philadelphia, Pa have an impact such that the government will be compelled to intervene?
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This decision opens up an interesting avenue for pro-choice advocates to pursue if Roe v Wade is ever overturned. Reproductive rights could still be ensured at the state level. This is essentially what the pro-lifers have often done, in reverse.
I think that’s pretty commonly understood down our ways, and was the situation before Roe v Wade, which outlawed many restrictions on abortion. The practical result would likely be that many people in conservative states would be left completely without abortion rights as they passed various anti-abortion legislation. Nothing would change in places where such laws weren’t passed.
For the sake of being clear about the implications here, I don’t think this actually follows without additional assumptions. I don’t see anything inconsistent about the belief that human life starts at conception, and that identical twins are two human beings who started out as one.
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Mind elaborating on what you see as the relevance of this passage? As far as I can tell, the curse in the ritual has to do with infertility, not abortion.
How could you forget something so fundamental?
I’m not agreeing with you, Jordan.
I know enough biology to know that there’s no bright white line to be seen. The reality that every Christian denomination in the world treats identical twins as two different people is more than sufficient to show that any Christian claiming that a human life begins at conception is not thinking about evidence.
Why did you omit the singular article “a” that Jordan had used?
Everything about it is inconsistent. Human life is a continuum. Where is the assumption there?
Then how and when did the second twin get a soul?
A man who suspects his wife of infidelity can induce abortion and infertility with God’s help.
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If you really want to see some serious tap-dancing ask if conjoined twins have one soul or two, and why.
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I suppose because I think that if a human life begins at conception, then human life in general (i.e. typically, in the normal case) begins at conception.
Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by this. Are you saying that there’s too much continuity between two gametes and the zygote formed from their union for us to identify the zygote as the beginning of a human life?
I’m suggesting the possibility that the immaterial component of human beings is capable of transforming from one entity into two, just as the early embryo (or whatever) does on the physical side of things. (Assuming for the sake of discussion that the “soul” is what is important in the abortion debate.) Unless this is somehow ruled out as impossible, twinning doesn’t imply that a human life starts later than conception.
Ah, I see. The passage doesn’t explicitly mention anything about the women being pregnant at the time, or abortion or miscarriage. But some interpreters say the issue is there implicitly, in euphemism. If they’re wrong, this isn’t relevant.
If they’re right, though, it is still a mischaracterization to call it “inducing abortion with God’s help”. It is presented in the passage as an instance of divine judgement, the outcome falling under God’s prerogative. God having different prerogatives than humans, the application of this passage to the abortion debate isn’t “pretty simple” as you say.
It’s been a long week and I have a cold? Honestly it was more that I was trying to establish bookends and work inward, heartbeat, “can feel pain”, etc. have also been used as criteria. Your point is an important one though, for sure.
That’s fine, I’m not looking to promote a particular answer or get consensus. Here’s my basic thinking:
- I grew up, and still largely interact with, a cultural context that makes abortion the single most important political issue. It’s enough to get large numbers to vote for a candidate that is otherwise almost totally antithetical to their beliefs.
- One of the things I’m using Peaceful Science for is to break out of the echo chamber and interact with people who have completely different beliefs. Sometimes it’s very challenging but I have learned a lot from the atheists and agnostics here as well as other forms of Christian belief.
- Another thing I’m using Peaceful Science for is to learn how to sharpen and articulate my own beliefs as well as learning how to engage in a pluralistic “marketplace of idea”.
- My approach going into this topic (which could be an entirely wrong way to go about it, I admit) was to start with the issue being one of conflicting rights (right to life and right to self determination). The question “when does life begin?” being used to establish when “right to life” might be applicable. I was then going to work on when “right to self determination” might be applicable – as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rights of others, as an example.
- I mostly wanted to throw some ideas out there and get feedback, I certainly don’t presume to be an expert in this area or claim that my approach is the only/best by any means.
Very true, but we have many age-based legal/constitutional criteria – age to drive, age of consent, age to vote, age to become President, age to purchase alcohol/cigarettes, etc. In fact, as a university professor mostly teaching introductory undergraduate courses I can attest that “adult” is one of the most fuzzy age-based lines we have, and it also has huge ramifications.
My experience is that “life begins at conception” has more to do with philosophy and theology than it does biology. I think there are some that would say it doesn’t matter if the fertilized egg produces one or two human lives, it’s still human life and therefore to be valued as such.
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That is a very good question, very much worth a conversation.
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Two. The “why” would be the same reason that identical twins do (and no, I don’t claim to know the answer to that). The “how do we know” is the same as how we know that any other person besides ourselves does (I take this to basically be the same as the “problem of other minds” in philosophy).
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The interesting thing is that for a single birth we’re told by many the soul enters the body at the moment of conception.
For identical twins the split from one fertilized egg into two separate ones occurs early on, between days 2-6 after fertilization. Since each twin supposedly has a unique soul their souls can’t enter until after the split.
For conjoined twins the incomplete split doesn’t occur until much later, days 13-15 in the embryonic stage. If conjoined twins each have their own soul the soul must wait until 2 weeks or so before entering. Then you have the awful case of parasitic conjoined twins with only one twin having a head and body and the other headless half a body attached. I’d hate to guess if both halves of a parasitic conjoined set has a soul.
Of course there are others who believe a soul enters a body at 40 days after conception, or at 90 days, or at first breath. They all can’t be right.
Tres confusing.
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