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Life Begins At Conception

Who nailed it for this week? People like to say “the science has spoken” when it comes to certain highly charged debates these days. We’ve recently found out that the scientists, in this case biologists, have clearly spoken on the subject of when life begins, and it’s making some people very upset. Now why would that be?

{I’m Joel Fieri, Executive Producer of Christian Podcast Central. And this is “The Best Thing You’ll Hear This Week”}

Recently I came across an article by Tyler O’Neill at P.J. Media about a study done by a PHD student at The University Of Chicago who questioned over 5,000 biologists for their opinions of when life begins. His study found that 95 percent of the biologists agreed that “a human’s life begins at fertilization.” And these were not pro-life biologists. The vast majority of them described themselves as pro-choice. It seems that the student doing the survey does also, although it’s not clear where he stands. He clearly wasn’t seeking to support a pro-life position.

The study started with a survey of the general public on the question of just who should determine the beginning of life. It turns out that a vast majority of Americans believe that biologists should determine the question “When does a human’s life begin?”, and that the question is important to the abortion debate.

So what we have a situation where, in the very contentious abortion debate, the public is looking to scientists (biologists in particular) to inform us on the origins of life. When a graduate student at a prestigious university surveys biologists on that very question, 95% of them affirm that, in their scientific opinion, life begins at conception. Now you would think this would be received by the academic community as a significant finding, and that although most pro-choicers wouldn’t like it, hey – the scientists have spoken, right? But of course, that’s not the case. The student has been relentlessly attacked for even daring to take such a survey. As O’Neil says in his article “Even though (the student) claims this study is not an attempt to support the pro-life position in the abortion debate, academics attacked him for it.

“I was told that my survey seemed like it was developed by the Ku Klux Klan; I was told that my work could expedite the extinction of the human race; I was told that I should be ashamed of myself since I was damaging the reputation of the University of Chicago,””

O’Neil goes on to include examples of the very angry and unbelievable reactions from some of the biologists surveyed. He rightly notes that the study’s finding “definitely struck a nerve among pro-choice academics.”

So what I think we have here is simply the latest example that I could find of the Judeo-Christian worldview and value system being supported by either common sense, world events or in this case, a scientific study. A scientific study that wasn’t intended to support the pro-life position. A scientific study that was met with some nasty opposition when some academics realized what the findings of the study could actually mean, and the effect it could have on the abortion debate.

Psalm 139 says that God’s eyes saw our unformed bodies, that all our days were ordained before even one of them came to be. We were knit together in our mother’s womb. Don’t believe that? Fine. Believe the science then. Life – human life – begins at conception. That’s what the biologists say. But they’re just confirming what we Biblically and instinctively already know. The question is, will we speak up to protect that life? Thanks to a new PHD student, who didn’t really know what he was going to find, we now have that much more confidence to unapologetically stand for unborn, knit-together-in-the-womb human life. And that HAS to be The Best Thing You’ll Hear This Week.