Yesterday’s reaction to the leaked Supreme Court decision reminded me of a college assignment I had given my students. The assignment was not meant to change anybody’s mind about abortion as some thought. However, it would force them to do some serious research. The assignment was something like, “What is the most prominent belief about when life begins?” I detailed it by asking how the various theories about when life begins had changed over time. The assignment was thus a very detailed research assignment.
What students discovered was the most common belief as to when life begins was at birth. When the baby takes its first breath, the animating spirit, soul, enters the baby at that moment. In one primitive society, the soul does not enter the baby until one year old. It is speculated that that is due to the high death rate of infants. Other societies had sort of a modern view, and when the baby was born, it was considered a year old. It had nothing to do with the soul, animating spirit in those societies.
When did the belief that life begins at the moment of conception will occur? It started with the nuns at Catholic hospitals querying when they should baptize a miscarriage. That would make no sense unless you know that the Catholics believe an unbaptized person will remain in purgatory with never a chance to go to heaven. A papal decree was issued saying that life begins at the moment of conception. However, the reasoning was that it was impossible to know when the soul entered the fetus. It made sense under Catholic doctrine that no one should endure purgatory forever by no act of their own.
That ruling found favor in other Christian churches without understanding that it came from a doctrine they do not hold to, i.e., purgatory. The Catholics in the class were pleased to find out they had led this change in belief. The non-Catholics would sometimes be disturbed because they realized it was a religious belief. Why should their lives be ruled by someone else’s religious beliefs? That’s what makes the whole debate so tricky. It’s not based on biology but theology.
