When does a human life begin? Here is what leaders in the medical community (along with a pastor and a presidential candidate) have to say…
From First Things:
Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”
Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania): “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris): “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”
Rick Warren: At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?
Sen. Barack Obama: “Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”
Sen. John McCain: “Life begins at conception.”
(HT: Between Two Worlds)
For an argument for human rights (including the unborn) see Defending Life by Francis Beckwith