Disciple, I'm confused. If I asked you to explain to me the second law of thermodynamics, would you do so from Scripture? If I asked you to utilize the Pythagorean Theorem, would you do so using Scripture? If I asked you to explain to me how aspirin thins my blood, would you do so using Scripture? If I asked you to explain the rules of baseball to me, would you do so using Scripture? If I asked you to explain to me the composition of uranium, would you do so using Scripture?
The question to when human life begins is easily answered from a medical and scientific standpoint. We don't need Scripture to supply the answer.
Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University ofPennsylvania, stated:“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception…. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life…. I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty…is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.”
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. He said: “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”
Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic: “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School:“It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”
Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School:“The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, or economic goals.”
Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the prolife cause. Nevertheless, he affirms unequivocally, “The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.
Bottom line is that medically we know a new human life comes into existence at conception.
