Local Opinion: Choice is a First Amendment right. – Arizona Daily Star

The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

The recent flurry of legislation intent on banishing abortion in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade epitomizes the unceasing disdain the religious right has long held for the separation of Church and State as set forth in the First Amendment. This foundational principle affirms that competing ideologies are equal in status provided they remain non-intrusively within their own domains without violating the rights of others. But those devoted to the religious doctrine of the Divine origin of life feel justified in overruling this paradigm of democracy, convinced that their intolerant interpretation is divinely sanctioned.

In the crusade against abortion the indispensable assertion most often advanced in support of this assumed moral entitlement is the evidence-starved pronouncement that lifeor soul, in religious vernacularoriginates at conception. Although advocates of this arbitrary claim find it self-evident, they unhesitatingly appropriate for their purposes the mundane scientific fact of genomic uniqueness at conception as proof of personhood. This uniqueness criterion, as well call it, intended to designate definitively an actual, as opposed to potential individual, merely demonstrates that conception creates a singular genetic configuration out of all possible permutations of DNA. Nonetheless, this is taken as sufficient to establish conception as the point of origin for the soul.

Taking them at their word, we can immediately invoke the devastating challenge to their thesis presented by the potential for human cloning. Moral and ethical concerns aside, cloning technology relies on the full genetic complement of the genome of non-reproductive cells to provide the blueprint for new life, bypassing conception altogether. Regardless of whether this capability is ever exploited, its potential to conjure new humans complete with souls out of nowhere delivers a fatal blow to the conception claim.

With this problematic counterexample in full view, questions naturally abound. Where does the soul reside prior to cloning while the donor cell idles in its day-to-day existence? Since it seems that any proper DNA sequence, in principle, can be awakened to release a novel soul, what then are we to make of the uncountable abundance of random digital strings that happen to code for the genomes of purely theoretical humans? Should these be regarded as new life under the uniqueness criterion? Is there a pre-conception Limbo? And while were at it, what about identical twins? Do they somehow share a soul?

There is an outrageous absurdity bellowing forth from these speculations that belies the basis for belief in any special standing for embryos. Attempting to bestow sacred status upon them by arguing from their Divine origins is question begging at its worst. And yet, it is this arbitrarily exalted status founded entirely on religious dogma that presents the controlling impediment to womens reproductive freedom. A proper application of the First Amendment should categorically exclude from consideration such unsubstantiated claims of priority that must be regarded by their very nature as non-secular tenets lacking legitimacy and belonging exclusively to the domain of religious opinion. There is no conceivable constitutional justification that entitles this proselytization to hold sway in deciding matters of ultimate personal privacy.

The true value of human life does not lie in the biochemistry of genetics, or in any arbitrarily defined stage of the life cycle of a cell. Nor does it derive from wishful transcendental designations deeply rooted in cultural indoctrination, but emerges naturally out of the meaning with which life is imbued by us all as full participants pursuing our innate right to self-determination. Its embodiment is the collective expression of our intimate personal experience of the human condition that is so much more than the rudimentary origins of our existence. The reasoning mind readily appreciates that this is the true uniqueness that deserves prioritythe value worth preserving and defending against unjust burdens imposed by unenlightened ideologies. This is the very essence of the First Amendment.

Robert Gavlak is a lifelong Tucson resident.

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Local Opinion: Choice is a First Amendment right. - Arizona Daily Star