From the series Answering Planned Parenthood.
Pro-Life: Human life begins at conception. Therefore, abortion is murder of a person.
Planned Parenthood: Personhood at conception is a religious belief, not a provable biological fact. Roman Catholic, Mormon and some Fundamentalist churches believe in personhood at conception, Judaism holds that it begins at birth and abortion is not murder; ensoulment theologies vary widely within Protestantism. The religious community will never reach consensus on the definition of a "person" or when abortion is morally justified.
Let's analyze the statement, line by line.
Their first statement is extremely misleading, not to say an outright lie.
Personhood at conception is a religious belief, not a provable biological fact. Roman Catholic, Mormon and some Fundamentalist churches believe in personhood at conception,
"Personhood" is not a concept invented by religious people. The only people who make the distinction between "personhood" and "human beings" are secular people or social liberals. For the religious person, they are one and the same. There was never a need to invent a concept of "personhood".
I find it interesting that they say personhood is a religious concept when they, the epitome of secular humanism, are the ones who use it. Seems rather contradictory, doesn't?
They don't seek to answer the proposition that human life begins at conception. Do they agree or not? You would think people in the medical field would have an answer to that. Again, evasion from that question.
ensoulment theologies vary widely within Protestantism.
This is not a matter of "ensoulment". The issue is not whether a human being has a soul. The question is: is the fetus a human being, is he a person,and is he an equal? There are plenty people in the world who believe in equality of human beings without believing in souls.
The religious community will never reach consensus on the definition of a "person" or when abortion is morally justified.
Whether or not the religious community agrees on something is not the point. The religious community does not agree on SSM, but that didn't stop the Canadian Parliament from passing a law recognizing it, right?
The Pro-life assertion seeks to make a point about the status of the fetus. Instead of Planned Parenthood making a statement about the moral status of the fetus, it evades the questions altogether.
It does not justify their belief in that particular status.
The truth is, they do not want to address that question. They are cowards. They simply could have said "The fetus is not the equal of a born adult because he is not independent from his mother."
That would have been a far more forthright answer to the question, instead of invoking the ridiculous idea that only religious people have ideas about what constitutes personhood, and the notion that since people don't agree, we shouldn't seek the truth about the matter. Really, it's a cowardly way of saying: "the fetus isn't equal, but we're going to make the issue about a lack of religious consensus"-- even though there has never been a need for religious consensus to pass any law in Canada.
