We Need Ongoing Conversations About When Human Life And Human Personhood Begin

I had the following piece published in the Daily News-Record on, of all days, my birthday:

I remember when it was still possible to have civil debates among people of faith over the issue of abortion. Most recognized a lack of consensus in both scientific and religious communities over complex questions about the beginning of human life and human personhood. Then almost overnight, largely through efforts by some on the political right, the issue became framed in a way that brought about a sharp and unreconcilable divide. On one side were those who felt the science was still unclear and that theologians had more work to do in determining beginning of life questions. On the other side were those who insisted that any termination of any pregnancy at any stage was equal to cold blooded murder.

Once the word “murder” became associated with even the use of an IUD as a means of birth control, or the use of a morning-after pill in the case of rape or incest, for many the debate was over. Either you were for preserving life from the very moment of conception or you become an accomplice to killing babies.

Historically there have been earnest debates by theologians over how soon after conception “ensoulment” happened, with some concluding it was somewhere around day 40, and some later. For many the question was important in order to determine when and whether a prenatal human life was under the condemnation of original sin and required baptism.

Meanwhile, most Jewish and some Protestant communities saw human life, while physically beginning at conception, as not being fully ‘ensouled’ until birth. They drew on the creation account in Genesis, in which the Spirit/Wind/Breath of God hovered over the earth, impregnating it with life. Then in a special moment of human creation, God fashioned adamah (dust) into God’s own image, then breathed into it the breath of divine life, at which point the human being became a living soul, a person, and was given a name, Adam.

Based on this understanding of humanity being first beautifully formed from clay and then wonderfully endowed with the divine breath of life, many faith communities made some distinctions between the existence of a human body in the womb and the God-breathed life of a human soul, or person, while recognizing each as a priceless gift from God.

Here are some of our actual practices:
1. We typically name, dedicate, bless, and/or christen infants after a birth has taken place. A name might be chosen before birth but is not officially documented until afterwards.
2.Traditionally our life stories, biographies and memoirs begin with the date of our birth rather than the date of our conception or viability. That date of birth is linked to our identity, required for verification at medical and other appointments, celebrated annually and is memorialized on our tombstones.
3. While there is an estimated equal number of natural abortions (miscarriages) as there are induced ones, faith communities have normally published obituaries and held memorial or burial services only for stillbirths or for infants already born. We have, however, hopefully begun to do more to support those grieving all of these losses, while not normally erecting grave markers to memorialize prenatal life.
4. In terms of census taking, a woman pregnant with a baby is still counted as only one person. Only after a delivery is the resulting birth added to the census and counted as a citizen.

If we truly believed full personhood, and not just life, began at conception, we should perhaps do all of the above, but I raise these points simply to recognize some of the complexity we have long associated with the issue, and to humbly ask whether we could agree that neither science nor religion have yet come up an absolutely definitive answer as to just when a human life in formation becomes a human person. 

Meanwhile, I join with pro-life-minded women and men everywhere who honor and protect life from conception (remember the awesomeness of that first sonogram!), with abortions performed only in cases of incest, rape, or for significant medical or health reasons, and not as a primary means of birth control. But I will also join with all who offer empathy and support for those who face gut wrenching beginning-of-life as well as end-of-life decisions for which there may not always be simple or easy answers.

In addition we should also support efforts at having men take full responsibility for the pregnancies they cause, and join in doing everything we can to help relieve the suffering of innocent men, women and children everywhere (including unborn ones) who face unbelievable hardships and trauma in the face of famine, war and other forms of violence and destruction.

Let’s work together at being consistently pro-life. All of us.

Why I fully support my church's stand on abortion. 

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/02/yes-i-am-pro-life-and-oppose-abortion.html

Another perspective: https://www.phillyvoice.com/abortion-christian-beliefs-murder-roe-wade-supreme-court/?fbclid=IwAR3BiEerBld0bjaKhZLlTL1Yeb5tn4pwpe6SQ9qr1X7V4P2Ncug3MsPL4SE