Claims biologists can determine and agree when human life begins are untrue

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given states final say over if and when abortions are legal, the political debates over abortion rights will intensify in legislatures and courthouses around the nation. Many of those discussions will hinge on the question of when, exactly, is the beginning of a human life that could – or should – be protected by law.

friend of the court filing in the Supreme Court case implicitly claimed that biology – and therefore biologists – can tell when human life begins. The filing then went on to claim explicitly that a vast majority of biologists agree on which particular point in fetal development actually marks the beginning of a human life.

Neither of those claims is true.

The role of science

As a biologist and philosopher, I have been watching players in the national abortion debate make claims about biology for many years.

Abortion rights opponents know that Americans have widely differing values and religious beliefs about abortion and the protection of human life. So they seek to use science as an absolute standard in any discussion of abortion’s constitutionality, setting a definition of human life that they hope will be immune to any counterargument….

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