Gil Shapiro: The ‘soul’ is a religious, not scientific truth

The Alabama Supreme Court recently decided that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children,” and its Arizona counterpart just instituted a near total abortion ban.

Both rulings are predicated on the justices’ Christian belief, although not stated specifically, that the sperm-egg union is divinely “ensouled” at conception. The soul, however, is a uniquely theological concept generally defined as the immaterial and eternal part of a human being. To religionists, ensoulment bestows sanctity (godliness) and fetal personhood, which requires human rights protection.

In agreement, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker unabashedly and duplicitously used his religion-driven mentality and legal power to deny thousands of couples the ability to have children through in vitro fertilization (IVF). In his biblically based ruling, he argued that “The People of Alabama ... "

• “…believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God ... "
• “… human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”
• “…that this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life — that their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory ..."

From that dogma he extrapolated that an embryo fits within the definition of a child — I guess much the same way an acorn fits within the definition of a tree.(!) While Parker could not cite any Bible verse against abortion — because there are none — he nevertheless strongly inferred that to intentionally abort an embryo or fetus is to commit murder.

Not only is the soul's existence an untestable hypothesis, but it is also an incoherent notion. If souls exist, how would they benefit the majority of fertilized eggs that are spontaneously aborted? Consider: Most human embryos die before anyone knows they exist. This important biological reality needs to be understood when using ensoulment as a primary reason for giving an embryo personhood status.

Kathryn Kavanaugh, Associate Professor of Biology (UMass Darthmouth) explained that “This embryo loss typically occurs in the first two months after fertilization, before the clump of cells has developed into a fetus with immature forms of the body’s major organs. Total abortion bans that define personhood at conception mean that full legal rights exist for a 5-day-old blastocyst, a hollow ball of cells roughly 0.008 inches (0.2 millimeters) across with a high likelihood of disintegrating within a few days.”

According to experts, an estimated “47%-80% of all fertilized eggs/embryos (normal and abnormal) traditionally produced are naturally aborted ... this is due to random genetic errors ... about 75% of all human conceptions fail to survive to birth.” These statistics must be shocking and morally alarming to "pro-life" women! Does each menstrual flow possibly contain a dead child? Should funerals be considered after menses and miscarriages? And why would a loving God abort what He has just “ensouled?”

Ensoulment believers must also answer why their deity, possessing perfect and unlimited goodness, would place a precious human soul in the embryo of:

• a victim of rape or incest who will have an abortion.
• in a future mass murderer or evildoer?
• in a soon to be severely malformed fetus which will die in the womb, shortly after birth...or live a worthless, possibly painful, “vegetable-like” existence? (Hypothetically, if there were a pill to maintain its gestation, would these women who canonize the sanctity of all human life, take such a pill to preserve their pregnancy?)

While great strides have been made to reduce infant mortality, there have been surprisingly no cries from the pro-life community to redirect research dollars or raise money (hold telethons?) to find reasons for this apparent "human holocaust.” This is hypocrisy at its finest!

Ironically, if more government supported embryonic research were allowed, the chances for these entities to become healthy children would likely increase!

And, as if there was no end to their inanity, theocrats in the judiciary and government want to consider certain forms of birth control as abortifacients. They also want health care providers to withhold information, prescriptions, and care from patients simply because of their faith driven beliefs.

All this said, consider whether “souls” even exist?

To wit: At what moment, in the continuum of the evolution of humans from non-humans (over the past hundreds of thousands of years) did the first ensoulment occur? Was some particular child ensouled whose parents were not? This is unlikely since there is no precise demarcation point between us Homo-sapiens and our ancestors: great apes, Homo-erectus and so on.

Unless all these questions can be answered rationally, the tenuous human “soul” and “ensoulment” hypotheses should remain religious truths, not scientific ones.

When justices and legislators improperly choose religion over science when deciding cases or enacting legislation, they clearly violate church-state separation…and common sense.

Governance, in a pluralistic, secular, democratic, and constitutional republic should be based on reason, science, and not the fear of “incurring the wrath of a holy God.”