A fertilized egg has no heart. Nor does it have a brain, or limbs, or any other organs. It can’t think, feel, communicate, propel itself, or feed itself. It in no way resembles a complete human being. And yet, Ross Douthat argues that, because it is a living thing in the process of becoming a fully functional human, it must be treated as a person. Is he right?
No. Douthat bases his argument on the condition of the extremely sick and old, who at some point are likely to lose, either temporarily or permanently, some of the functions that most of us associate with humanity. I just don’t accept that someone who has all of the organs necessary to be human, who have used them for many years, who still have use of some of them at all times, and who may recover the use of the rest of them after a short interlude, should be treated the same way as something which only potentially has any of the attributes of humanity. It’s not the same thing.
What Douthat really believes is that the soul is created at conception. Since that is a religious argument with little appeal for NYT readers, and which has obvious First Amendment implications, he avoids it. But it is what it is. There is no point in pretending otherwise.