The question is not whether they’re human beings

That’s irrefutable scientific fact. The question is….what are you going to to about it?

Is it actually the case that no one can tell you with any degree of authority when the life of a human being actually begins?

No, it is not. Treating the question as some sort of grand mystery, or expressing or feigning uncertainty about it, may be politically expedient, but it is intellectually indefensible. Modern science long ago resolved the question. We actually know when the life of a new human individual begins.

A recently published white paper, “When does human life begin? A scientific perspective,” offers a thorough discussion of the facts of human embryogenesis and early development, and its conclusion is inescapable: From a purely biological perspective, scientists can identify the point at which a human life begins. The relevant studies are legion. The biological facts are uncontested. The method of analysis applied to the data is universally accepted.

But what to do about that irrefutable fact is a loaded political question.

On the other side are those who believe that those human beings who have worth and dignity have them in virtue of having achieved a certain level of development.

As opposed to inherently having worth and dignity by being human. As if some additional level of development is necessary to confer on that human being more worth and dignity, by degrees.

They deny that all human beings have worth and dignity and hold that a distinction should be drawn between those human beings who have achieved the status of “personhood” and those (such as embryos, fetuses, and, according to some, infants and severely retarded or demented individuals) whose status is that of human non-persons.

Seriously, this is the tortured parsing of terminology assigned to different states of being. Why? To de-humanize whole classes of human beings and justify denying them rights.

Political parties that hold those views cannot make a coherent argument for any other moral argument on behalf of health care, or housing, or equitable distribution of wealth and resources for other classes of human beings. One you have eliminated a class of human beings from rights, you have selectively and prejudicially chosen certain classes worthy and others unworthy.

But hey, when you go far in politics unchallenged (to any consequences) with this viewpoint, you bully your way into power. And then you have created what Pope Benedict refers to as ‘the tyranny of the majority.’

Who’s safe in that scenario?