Beating-heart confusion

Re: Theresa Schultz’s May 8 letter, “Heartbeats aren’t up for debate” and George Will’s May 5 column, “ ‘Heartbeat bills’ stir abortion debate”:

The “beating-heart” debate on abortion is a version of “When does life begin?” and it will help to return to the old form — and recognize it’s the wrong question.

The Bible and biology agree that life does not begin; it began: thousands of years ago in the Biblical chronology; billions of years in the biological. Life began and is passed down, and egg, sperm, zygote, embryo and fetus are part of that life.

But note the old line, “Don’t say ‘All life is sacred’ while eating a bacon burger.” Or a carrot. Human societies establish human life as a special category, and a crucial question with abortion is when that fertilized egg, embryo, fetus becomes human and “a person under the law” with rights like those of the clearly human mother.

That’s a difficult and dangerous question. Are humans special because we have souls, or do we have only “life-breath”? In the Bible, “the Preacher” (Koheleth) says, “As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child” as a strong example of something we do not know (Ecclesiastes 11.5). If even believers don’t know how, can you know when? And should such beliefs influence public policy in a secular republic? A Christian nation?

As I said: a difficult issue, divisive and dangerous without ramping up emotions.

Richard D. Erlich, Port Hueneme