Embryos as children—really?
While an acorn can develop into an oak tree, an acorn is not an oak tree. While all citizens of the United States (natural born citizens at least 35 years old who have resided in the United States for at least 14 years) have the potential to become the president, a potential president is not a president. While an embryo can develop into a human being, a potential human is not a human: an embryo is not a human being.
The most vexing aspect of the analysis of the morality of the destruction of a fertilized ovum is the need to determine when human life begins and, more fundamentally, to define what constitutes human life.
No one considers the amputation of an arm or a leg to be murder, because neither arms nor legs are human beings. They are appendages of human beings, to be sure, but they are not human beings. Human beings are typically defined as conscious, sentient, independent, autonomous beings with thoughts and feelings, with capacities to experience pleasure and pain, with wills of their own, with abilities to seek satisfaction of their needs and desires. An embryo does not possess the faculties needed to qualify it as a human being.
Some theologians simply define embryos to be human beings. In support of this assertion, they argue that God infused a soul into every embryo. Tom Parker, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, has the support of the authors of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In that work, the authors assert “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person—among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
By this mysterious, invisible, supernatural, unverifiable process, this hypothetical infusion affords every embryo the same rights that every fully developed, conscious human being enjoys. While some people argue that faith, sheer belief, is enough to apprehend features of a supernatural realm, others, advancing an argument with at least as much merit, claim that those who believe in such a realm are harboring only an illusion. No one can determine in a way that convinces everyone the moral status of the destruction of embryos.
On one side of this debate are appeals to authorities, individuals who issue dictates—commands based solely on theological beliefs—beliefs which, incidentally, vary dramatically among organized religions. On the other side, there are assertions based on reason and factual observations. Mysterious, unverifiable phenomena cannot be strong foundations on which to build the laws that govern our societies.
The Alabama Supreme Court is wrong in ruling that frozen embryos are children.
References
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA, SC- 2022-0515; SC- 2022-0579 (February 16, 2024), https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/4b56014daa6dda84/a03... [Accessed 2024-02-24].
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Liguori Publications, 1994, p. 547 ¶2270.
Rojas, Rick (2024 February 22) “The Alabama Chief Justice Who Invoked God in Deciding the Embryo Case” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/alabama-ivf-tom-parker.html [Accessed 2024-02-24].
Pew Research Center. (2016 June 21) “Where major religious groups stand on abortion” www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/06/21/where-major-religious-groups-... [Accessed 2024-02-24].
Mitchell, Taiyler S. (2024 February 18) “Alabama Supreme Court Rules That Frozen Embryos Are ‘Children'” www.huffpost.com/entry/alabama-ruling-frozen-embryos-children_n_65d29a77... [Accessed 2024-02-24].