Not a Matter of Faith

Senator & Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden was asked on Meet the Press this morning whether he believed that life began at conception. He responded that yes, he took it on faith that life does begin at conception. While this may seem like a positive statement, Biden is in fact doing a grave disservice not only to the pro-life movement, but to science in general, as life beginning at conception does not need to be taken on faith as it has been proven that this is in fact the beginning of life.

It is in fact quite a bizarre statement if you stop to think about it: one would never say, “I take as a matter of faith that the stomach is connected to the small intestine, or that a man has an XY chromosome.” And yet to speak about the beginning of life as a matter of faith is completely common due to the debate over abortion.

While on the one hand, it does us Catholics honor that defending human life is seen as ‘our ball park,’ on the other hand, to put belief in the beginning of life as a religious matter is exactly what pro-abortionists want, since it relegates the issue to a personal one: “that’s alright for you to believe, but I believe differently.” Once we realize, however, that the beginning of life is a matter of science, the issue of abortion changes from a religious matter to one of justice: since science has revealed to us that life begins at conception, is it ever right to kill an unborn child? To enter into the debate with secular society over abortion, as Catholics we will only cut ourselves off from others if we refer to our religious beliefs with abortion. Instead, by actively steering the argument back to the realm of science and justice, we challenge others to recognize the unborn child as one of us, and to question whether it is ever right to kill this child.

- By Caroline Fuerte, Be. L