Mormons and Roe v. Wade - When Does Life Begin?

The fourteenth amendment guarantees the protection of life, liberties, and persons within the state. The big question in relation to abortion then is whether or not the unborne fetus is a living person because if the fetus is determined to be a living person, then that person would have the protection of life, rights, and liberties guaranteed by the constitution.

There are four main views of when the fetus becomes a living person:
1. At conception.
2. “Quickening” - when the fetus is felt moving (as early as 14 weeks).
3. Viability – when the fetus is able to survive outside of the womb (as early as 10 weeks).
4. Birth.

For most pro-life advocates, the argument is made that life begins at conception. For some this means the moment when the egg becomes fertilized; for others it is when the new embryo attaches itself to the uterus and the mother becomes biologically pregnant.

While “quickening” was once historically used as evidence of life, it has largely become abandoned because new ultrasound technology has shown that muscular movements occur from the beginning of their very development and whether or not the mother can sense this movement is rather arbitrary.

Viability was upheld in Roe v. Wade as a reliable measure of determining when the fetus is a person and provides individual states with the right to ban abortions after this point (except for those done to protect the life or health of the mother).

Birth is pretty much a given though the issue of partial-birth abortion complicates this. I will have another post devoted to this difficult procedure later.

Because 'quickening' has become obsolete and Roe v. Wade acknowledges viability as an adequate determiner of life, then whether or not life begins at conception is the primary question related to when life begins for those who wish to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The problem with basing abortion laws on the belief that life begins at conception is because that belief is a religious belief and our first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” To base a law on a religious belief is to establish a particular religious belief over another and is the very establishment of religion. This is the core of the matter. Our constitution (which in Mormonism was divinely inspired) specifically states that we cannot use our religious beliefs to construct laws which infringe on the rights of others. And that is what the belief that life begins at conception is – a religious belief.

Scientifically and philosophically, the idea that a clump of cells formed from a newly fertilized egg is a living person is difficult, if not impossible to make. For the first stages of development is not much different from a chunk of flesh ripped off my knee in a mountain biking accident. We would hardly consider that piece of flesh hanging by a layer of skin to be a living person. In later stages when the fetus has begun to develop organs and have a beating heart, we may emotionally and spiritually want to call it a living person, but that fetus is no different than that of a brain-dead car accident victim whose beating heart, lungs, and other organs are kept artificially 'alive' for donation by means of a life-support system. (So-called 'potential life' is a similar, but different issue which I'll discuss in another post.) Without scientific justification, the argument is left to religious beliefs which cannot be used to create laws – especially when those beliefs infringe on the rights of others.

This is complicated more when religious beliefs vary on when life begins. The common Christian view that life begins at conception was largely developed by Augustine in the 4th century whose views were largely based on the Aristotelian belief that human life was contained in the sperm of the father and that the mother was only fertile soil for planting that human life. Augustine took this further and argued that the whole of human society was seminally contained in Adam and that each male has the entirety of his progeny contained within him. This was the means by which original sin was continued and the reason why masturbation and birth control was prohibited. Any 'wasted' seed was in fact killing human life. Because the sperm itself was a human life, it growing in the newly impregnated mother was also a human life. While the beliefs underlying this argument for life at conception have somewhat faded, the conclusion remains the same for much of Christianity.

In Islam various interpreters have argued that life begins either at 'quickening' or something akin to viability. Several Jewish arguments go to the Genesis account where Adam is not a living person until he takes his first breath and God breathes spirit (breath) into him. From this they argue that life does not begin until the newborn takes its first breath.

And of course many are non-religious and don't have a religious argument for when a fetus is a living person.

For us Mormons, the 'official' Church has been explicit that there is no doctrine of when life begins. Brigham Young somewhat famously argued for 'quickening' though other church leaders and presidents have put forward everything from conception to the first breath.

With various religious and non-religious beliefs about when the fetus actually becomes a living person, it should be easily understood why that belief cannot be used to base a law.

Well if the belief that life begins at conception 'encompasses' all of the other beliefs, why not just use that? While this may seem to be the easy remedy, it still does not avoid the problem that such a law is telling another what they can or cannot do because of someone else's religious belief that they do not share. It would be no different than a law prohibiting the eating of pork because of Jewish and Islamic beliefs, contraception because of Catholic beliefs, or coffee based on our LDS beliefs. In matters of life and death we wouldn't want blood-transfusions and organ donations banned because of Jehovah's Witness beliefs, or even pacifist policies based on Quaker or Mennonite beliefs (no matter how much I would like that).

I have a religious belief that human-sacrifice is wrong and we are able to ban that. That human-sacrifice is wrong is not simply a religious belief. In our 'enlightened' society we have a pretty strong consensus that human sacrifice is wrong and should be outlawed. Furthermore, we are in complete agreement (besides crazies) that the person sacrificed in a human sacrifice is, in fact, a person. We need no religious beliefs to make the case that the victim is a human life that is guaranteed protection by the state.