In a recent New York Times piece asking “When Does Life Begin?,” religion correspondent Elizabeth Dias presents multiple lines of evidence to conclude that the question is simply too complex to be answered. She relays the poignant story of a woman who is pro-choice but who experienced a 16-week miscarriage as the loss of her child, Maya. She enumerates how different states (Arizona, South Carolina), different cultures (China, ancient Egypt), and different religious traditions (Judaism, medieval Christianity) have offered different answers to the question of when life begins. She notes that defenders of the view that life begins at sperm–egg fusion often cite “Christian principles,” suggesting that this conclusion is nothing more than a religious conviction. Dias acknowledges that “more than half of American adults say the statement ‘human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights’ describes their views at least somewhat well”; yet she goes on to present contrasting views offered by biologists, physicians, philosophers, anthropologists, and clerics.
Let me be clear: Outside of a few quibbles with the biology (the embryo clearly does not arise from a “fraction” of the cells present at the time of implantation; the placenta is manifestly not “a new organ that a woman’s body makes”; and it is absurd to characterize a pregnancy as a woman’s “making a new organism with her body”), I agree with all of the evidence Dias presents and with the obvious fact that opinions on this question are both complex and diverse. What I do not agree with is the conclusion that, simply because people hold diverse opinions on the subject, the question of when life begins cannot be definitively answered.
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