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Friday, May 19, 2017

Religious Fundamentalists and Zygotic Personhood

Radical 'fundamentalists' believe that because millions of children were not conceived because of "birth control pill" contraception then that makes it evil. Reasonable people see that because unwanted children were not produced, countless suffering has been abolished (e.g., decreases in crime, child abuse, and ecological nightmares). Regardless, with women gaining more control over their reproductive fate, society has changed. Reliable birth control became as easy as taking a pill, which some call the single greatest factor in helping women achieve equality.

Although religious people may debate whether a fertilized egg (zygote) should be accorded the same rights as a child, no one debates that the pill has decreased the suffering of fully formed, multicellular humans.

   Note that "zygotic personhood" (the idea that a fertilized egg is a person) is a recent concept. Historically, many believed that the embryo was not a person until it was 40 days old. Thus, a human did not have a soul have a soul until day 40. 
Note: This was the belief before the invention of Christian fundamentalism one hundred years ago / the movement reflected the cultural disorientation of poorer, more rural, less well-educated Americans in a rapidly urbanizing America, especially in conjunction with WWI.

But perhaps the real issue here is the question of when the soul is created (and by whom)? Some believe that the soul is created at conception (thus making the human coupling the creators). However, I believe that the soul exists much prior to this and is God's creation and that the soul does not even "begin" the long process of incarnating until about the time the embryo loses it's "vestigial tail".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality