Ever since Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, it has become increasingly clear that there is a new, distorted narrative that has taken hold among the women’s movement: As Roe goes, so goes womankind.
For some, this notion is a matter of willful ignorance, used to justify a social and political agenda, or to prop up the Roe economy. For a growing number of people, it is bona fide ignorance due to a fake science conjured up by that monumental Supreme Court ruling.
The “science” established in Roe v. Wade has become so pervasive and entrenched among society that many people truly believe that the Supreme Court decision is the standard in regards to human development, and the linchpin of a woman’s very humanity. Thus, feminists who accept this fiction maintain that anyone and anything that represents a hazard to Roe is complicit in a toxic culture that views girls and women as less than fully human.
With this understanding of their worldview, one can comprehend whence comes the hysteria related to perceived threats to Roe with each new Supreme Court nominee. One can also see why they are battling for Roe instead of marching today for life and for science on the National Mall.
Roe propagates scientific illiteracy about human reproduction and human development, to the point that it dehumanizes women to this day. And the false science embedded in Roe is causing many male and female human beings as embryos and fetuses to be killed, precluding ethically and legally valid informed consent, poisoning femininity, undermining the value of girls and women, and contributing to the erosion of human dignity for society as a whole.
Roe established a number of arbitrary and unscientific fallacies about embryology in order to justify the manipulation and termination of human beings. Some of these falsehoods include that science does not know when a human life starts, that there is an open question on whether or not a human embryo or fetus are human beings, and that some human beings are more fully human than others.
Supposedly, in the eyes of that decision, there are nonpersons and pre-persons, and you get to decide and choose which is which. Or, you may just be terminated.
Science does in fact know when a new, whole, individual and living human being begins to exist. It is an objective fact of the biological science of human embryology. This scientific reality was even instituted internationally in 1942, in the Carnegie stages of human embryonic development. Human embryologists view the Carnegie stages and the Carnegie chart as chemists view the periodic table, as their gold standard.
The Carnegie stages contain the 23 stages of development of the early human being during the embryonic period, starting at the beginning of fertilization through eight full weeks post-fertilization. They document precise details, including that a human being who is sexually reproduced begins his or her existence at the beginning of the process of fertilization (Carnegie stage 1a), at first contact between two mere cells, the sperm and the oocyte or egg.
Science also knows that this new single-cell human being continues to develop as the same human being during the remainder of the embryonic period, the fetal period, and then after birth, throughout the subsequent periods of development until death. This is a biological fact known as the continuum of human life. The idea that some human beings are less than fully human persons is a false concept that is based upon erroneous science, and any conclusions drawn from such “facts” are by definition invalid. If the accurate scientific facts are used, the human being and the concept of the “human person” are inseparable.
Based on Roe’s faulty science, feminists have come to believe that their choice causes substantial change in living things — that women can legitimately choose someone into existence, and that their DNA also accords them the power to end a human being’s life, prior to his or her birth — and yes, that even includes terminating another individual, living female member of the human species.
This may seem both empowering and appealing, as a matter of convenience, profits or otherwise. But the belief that some human beings have a different status than other human beings is incorrect, and it is the essence of a scientifically illiterate, toxic culture that breeds dehumanization and oppression, not liberation. Heaven forbid you find yourself someday among the “nonperson” set.
For nearly fifty years, the greatest casualties have beset the already-existing human beings in their embryonic and fetal periods of development, as well as women who gave their malformed consent to their destruction. Unless the Supreme Court acknowledges the scientific fact about abortion and what it does to a human being, Roe will continue to undermine feminism and lead to tragic consequences for an escalating number and scope of women and of humankind.
It’s time to stop indulging science-deniers.
Brooke Stanton is the CEO of Contend Projects, a registered 501(c)(3) education organization spreading the basic, accurate scientific facts about when a human life starts and the biological science of human embryology.
