Sperm and egg are the flotsam and jetsam of life. Like hair and fingernails, they are alive but they are not human life. They don't deserve any rights. Some time between the moment just before conception and the moment just before birth, though, a miracle happens: human detritus becomes precious life.
Some people think that this miracle happens at the instant of conception. While it is - at some level - hard to argue that material that could be discarded at one instant is suddenly endowed with rights at the next, this point of conception is a very clear and simple moment to choose for the start of life.
Most Americans think that human matter becomes human sometime between the third and seventh month after conception. About two-thirds of Americans support abortion in the first trimester, and about half support it in the second. It seems more reasonable to assume that the transformation from stuff to a person is not instantaneous, but one weakness with this is that any point between conception and birth is bound to seem arbitrary.
The problem I have with Rick Santorum is not that he thinks life begins at the moment of conception. I think that's a defensible position. My problem is that he wants to force this belief on people who think that human life begins at a later point - another perfectly defensible position. Nobody is forcing Rick Santorum to treat a pregnancy as terminable in the first four months; he ought not to force anyone else to treat it as sacred. It is not his beliefs that offend me. It is his insistence on forcing his beliefs on others.
His opinions offend me for another reason. Rick Santorum claims to be a Christian yet he reserves the right to have different opinions about religion than Christ. Christ made it clear that the people who would go to heaven would be those who clothed him when he was naked, fed him when he was hungry, and visited him in prison. When people ask, "When did we do this?" he will reply, "When you did this to the least, you did it to me." Christ's teaching repeatedly emphasized that how we treat others is how we'll be judged. Santorum shows no interest in these teachings of Christ but is very animated about issues like homosexuality, gay marriage, and abortion - issues we've absolutely no record of Christ addressing. Again, I don't have a problem with Santorum treating issues as important that Christ did not speak to and ignoring others that he did address; I do, however, have trouble with Santorum using Christ's name as an excuse for his agenda, arguing that this is a Christian nation. His religion's is different from Christ's and because of this he has about as much right to his views as the guy at the next stool over at the diner counter. (And you could easily make a similar point about Santorum being Catholic. Santorum supports a state's right to ban contraceptives, a position that would make the pope happy. However, Santorum discounts human made climate change, which the pope warns against, and is more than ready to start another war with Iran, wars that the pope opposes.) Even if you wanted to live in a country where the laws are defined by Christ's teachings, Santorum's policies would not be your answer. Calling his policies Christian is like calling a Big Mac health food; you might love it but you ought not to kid yourself about what it actually contains.
To repeat, I have no problem with Rick's beliefs. This nation was founded by Protestants who had a variety of beliefs and had learned from protracted religious wars in Europe to be tolerant of different beliefs. Catholics like Santorum are as welcome here as are Jews, Muslims, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, and everyone else. But they - like all the rest - are only welcome to practice their beliefs, not impose them on anyone else.
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