Recent Poll Reveals 95 Percent of Biologists Say Human Life Begins at Conception

The New American 22 July 2019
Family First Comment: 95% of 5,500 biologists — with specialties ranging from anatomy, biochemistry, cellular biology, genetics, and physiology — believe that “a human’s life begins at fertilization”, even those who are “very pro-choice,” “very liberal,” and consider themselves to be “strong Democrats”.
#biologymatters

In writing his majority opinion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, Associate Justice Harry Blackmun complained that neither he nor any of the experts in the field of medicine, philosophy, or theology knew when life began, and so he developed an extra-legal theory — a “right to privacy” — that permitted him and a majority of the Supreme Court to rule that abortion was constitutional. Wrote Blackmun:

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, in this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

How would Blackmun (who died in 1999) and his majority supporters rule if they knew then that 95 percent of 5,500 biologists — with specialties ranging from anatomy, biochemistry, cellular biology, genetics, and physiology — believe that “a human’s life begins at fertilization”?

What if they knew that of those biologists, even those who are “very pro-choice,” “very liberal,” and consider themselves to be “strong Democrats” believe life begins at conception?

That is the result of a study conducted by Ph.D. candidate Steven Andrew Jacobs in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Published in academic circles a year ago, it is now coming to light in what could well turn out to be a tipping point in the abortion controversy.
READ MORE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/faith-and-morals/item/32899-recent-poll-reveals-95-percent-of-biologists-say-human-life-begins-at-conception#