Science leads progressive law professor to new appreciation for life

Pro life reader Darlene sends an  interesting  CNN article  on  someone who describes themselves as a progressive  and  champions outlawing the death penalty  who is allowing the evidence to sway him on the issue of the dignity of human life in the womb.

No, he is not there all the way.... he still questions when life begins....check out the biology 101 textbook in any public high school and you will see that they have no doubt that human life begins at conception....but he at least acknowledges that the viability question is now getting down in weeks due to medical advances.  He is down to 24 weeks gestation as he has a neighbor whose 24 weeker is alive and well and with "eyes as clear as the TX sun."

"Right now, 10 states and the District of Columbia have no statutory time limit on when abortions can be performed, while five more states allow abortion up to the end of the second trimester (about 27 or 28 weeks). Yet, we know that by 28 weeks, the great majority of fetuses would survive birth. In other words, we allow the killing of viable infants in our country. This is a fact that progressives (including me) would rather not address."

As a pro choicer he is haunted by the continuing opinions that say Roe was wrongly decided but more so by the continuing scientific evidence showing the humanity of the preborn.  As a champion against the death penalty he acknowledges how DNA evidence has helped his cause, he then is honest enough to admit that the same argument helps the pro life cause.

"In the same way that the law had to change to accommodate advances in DNA evidence that can exonerate those on death row, state laws must change to accommodate that with modern medical care, a child born at 27 weeks is very likely not only going to live, but live a fairly normal life."

This is good for him to step outside his normal thought process fashioned by his ideology and suspicion of the other side to allow the facts to guide him. Many of us have come to the pro life side late in life by honestly examining the evidence.  For him it is looking at the face of a baby named Rees , the 24 weeker.

"He was, and is, a person, and that matters as much as Troy Davis and Hank Skinner."

Now he needs to continue to examine the evidence and recognize the humanity from conception and abandon his quality of life stance to sanctity of life.