When Does Life Begin?

June 8, 1981
A View of Abortion with Something to Offend Everybody 
   by Walker Percy, M.D. and novelist

  ..."I further submit that it is a commonplace of modern biology, known to every high school student and no doubt to you the reader as well, that the life of every individual organism, human or not, begins when the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with the chromosomes of the ovum to form a new DNA complex that thenceforth directs the ontogenesis of the organism."

  Percy also wrote, "Such vexed subjects as the soul, God, and the nature of man are not at issue. What we are talking about and what nobody I know would deny is the clear continuum that exists in the life of every individual from the moment of fertilization of a single cell.There is a wonderful irony here. It is this: The onset of individual life is not a dogma of the church but a fact of science."

King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 11:5
      "As you do not know the path of the wind,
       or how the body is formed  in a mother's womb,
       so you cannot understand the work of God,
       the Maker of all things."

  Human life begins with the fertilization of one cell. As Percy comments, that's basic biological knowledge. I Corinthians 3:19(a) tells us, "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." If we take the word "dogma" to mean doctrine, or set of beliefs, then I would have to say that yes, in fact, in what I see in the Bible, and as a member of the great church of God which includes all believers in the deity of Christ, life does start at conception. This is my belief. Here, science backs up the Bible.

  What is mysterious and wondrous is the miracle of God's love in His creation of all life. We certainly make a mess of things, as human beings. We take what is lovely and of God and twist it up and misinterpret and somehow make it ugly. We take the miracle of life and trample upon it and call it abortion; we call that a right! While we don't completely understand the miracles behind the science, let's strive to stay in God's perfect will and respect life, which He created.....whether we fully comprehend it, or not.