When asked by The New York Times, “When does human life begin?” Augustine Fuentes, Anthropologist at Princeton University, responded, “We think we’re having a debate in the United States about when life begins, but we’re not.. We’re having a debate about when society decides when people count, and not just when people count, but which people count more.”
Throughout history, mankind has wrestled with the question of when human life begins. Presented by Dr. Fuentes well the questions behind this question in our culture. We know when life begins, right? It is time for us to delve deeper into the unanswered questions behind the question of when human life begins and how pro-life Christians can engage with these issues. Listen to the latest CareCast, Care Net’s podcast on family, faith, and life with Roland Warren, President and CEO of Care Net, and Vincent DiCaro, Care Net’s Chief Outreach Officer.
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When does human life begin? Is this the real question?
The New York Times recently published a feature-length article about When Does Human Life Begin? The article shared many different views and debated, when does life begin?
Augustine Fuentes, Anthropologist at Princeton University, was asked by a NYT writer about this question and the surrounding debate. He replied, “We think we’re having a debate in the United States about when life begins, but we’re not. We’re having a debate about when society decides when man counts, and not just when man counts, but which man shall count more.”
Yes! Dr. got it. Fuentes. The actual debate is no about when human life became alive. We know this. The real questions are about when is a human life actually considered a person? When does human life become life worthy of protection?
No, when is a person really considered a person?
In our latest CareCast episode, we dig deeper into this question with a concrete example.
When does a Tesla become a Tesla? Is this when the first part starts off the assembly line? Is it when you add the wheels? When the logo was added? When did it really become Tesla?
Roland and Vince argued that a Tesla was never intrinsically a Tesla. Why? Because at any point in the research, design, engineering, stamping, welding, and assembling processes you can turn a Tesla into a toaster. An electric toaster, anyone? Oh wait.
Better yet, which human life has more value?
Note: People are not built, people develop. When we are having these debates, when does human life begin? We start talking about human life the same way we do building Tesla, except we can’t do that. We know from science, books, and experience that humans are not built; let’s build Human development is something we learn, right. Humans are inherently human from the beginning. We cannot be different than what we started with.
At this point in the podcast is when Roland and Vince share a very helpful illustration for those sitting in the back of the class, like me. They ask you to imagine taking a Polaroid photo. For the kids out there, a Polaroid photo is the one you have to wait for to develop before you can see the actual photo. Remember shaking them? The point is, if you take a picture of a chair, while you wait for the image of the chair to develop, you won’t be surprised to find, after the image is developed, that your image is a table.
The same goes for people. We seem to be stuck, debating about conception and the stages of life, with many still pretending as if no one is telling us that there is human life inside. We know now, nothing but one person will come from what will be developed. I’ll leave it to Roland and Vince to talk about this in more detail. Listen to them. As Christians, we must move forward from these conversations about when human life begins—and get to the point—and address when is life worth enough to sacrifice?
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