Alabama Supreme Court proved it’s as ignorant about the Bible as it is about embryos | Opinion
The Alabama Supreme Court illustrates once again why the nation needs to act with great restraint when it comes to its citizens and the state’s actions toward them with regard to the most intimate issues. The Alabama court has misread the Bible, ignored the Constitution, simplified conception and issued a ruling with unpredictable consequences that will become clear in the days and months to follow.
First, in the Bible, both breath and blood are equated with life. But in Genesis 1, we indeed are made from dust in the image of God, and in Genesis 2, God blows into the human the breath of life. Those who argue for life from conception have enormous difficulty in dealing with these biblical texts.
Further, the ancient world knew nothing of a woman having a female reproductive cell produced by the ovaries. (There is actually a tiny bit of evidence that ancients had some sense that a woman contributed something other than incubation, but it is, indeed, unclear.) Rather, women were seen as the fertile bed in which the seed of the man was placed. In fact, we don’t have the first undisputed observation of this female reproductive cell until 1826 or 1827 by Karl Ernst von Baer.
There are significant other biblical complications, but Old Testament Hebrew text scholar Lisa Wolfe says it with clarity: The Bible does not equate an embryo or a fetus with a baby.
Another problem is the disagreement among scientists about when personhood begins. Biologist Scott Gilbert points out with “absolute certainty” that there is no consensus among scientists on this issue. There are five points of view:
Fertilization, where the sperm and egg combine their nuclear materials, a long process ending with a two cell stage. (This is obviously where the Alabama Supreme Court has decided life begins with the case in point being a frozen embryo . One cannot but wonder on what legal grounds they have so much clarity when there’s so much disagreement among the scientific community itself, not even to mention the differences among spiritual and religious traditions.)
Implantation in the wall of the uterus, where you get a pregnancy.
Gastrulation, Day 14, for example, when the embryo becomes an individual and can no longer form twins and triplets, with one embryo giving rise to, at best, only one adult. (That is, till this point, you don’t know whether you have a single individual or twins or more!)
Electroencephalogram (measurable brainwaves) at week 24 to 28 when you see the beginnings of the human specific electroencephalogram.
At birth: during the perinatal period where a successful birth is possible.
Another matter that requires attention is that Article 14 of the the U.S. Constitution declares that citizens are “all persons born or naturalized.” A frozen embryo is not a citizen according to the Constitution. The 14th Amendment does go on to say “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Nowhere in the Constitution does it declare that a frozen embryo is a person. The Alabama Supreme Court simply makes that declaration. Such declarations establish one scientific and one religious point of view — which, in the latter, is in violation of the Constitution — and, in fact, violates the privileges, immunities, life, liberty and bodies of citizens without providing them with due process and equal protection of the laws.
Tex Sample is the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood.
