Caution! Adult language

The Republican Party’s position regarding human reproduction is that a life begins at the moment of conception. Actually, it’s not a “moment”: it may take up to 24 hours for the egg to accept the sperm, completing the conception. That is representative of the Party’s profound science ignorance.

However, when they say a “life,” they mean a person. They say all human life begins at conception. Well, every person on this earth or ever was on this earth did begin as a fertilized egg. True, but irrelevant. What is relevant, and they don’t mention, is that not every fertilized egg goes on to produce a live birth. In fact, far from it.

So, where is the “sanctity of life” when the majority of those “fertilized egg/persons” die, rather than resulting in live birth? Yes, an estimated 70% to 75% of human conceptions fail to survive to birth. And that’s a good thing. It shows Natural Selection is at work: the fittest survive: the weakest are winnowed out. (the Conversation September 1, 2022)

The Republican Party’s latest science flub is on In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). On the one hand, IVF is about more babies, which the Party is all for. But on the other hand, the standard IVF procedure usually winds up with excess embryos, which are commonly simply disposed of.

But aren’t those embryos persons, and isn’t that murder, just like abortion (in the Party’s opinion?) The Grand Old Party has some serious explaining to do.

John H. Terrell