Dark Star

From The Corner:

Tom Brokaw said to Sen. Biden yesterday, "When Barack Obama appeared before Rick Warren, he was asked a simple question: When does life begin? And he said at that time that it was above his pay grade. That was the essence of his question." No, it wasn't, and I wish people would stop getting this wrong. Warren's question was pretty well formulated so that it could not be answered with the usual who-knows-when-life-begins claptrap. Warren asked, "At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?" The only honest answer Obama could have given, based on his commitments, would have been something like: "I don't know when in the process of development an individual receives a soul, but the government can and must enforce human rights starting at birth."

Biden responded to Brokaw's question by saying that he is willing "to accept the teachings of my church" about when life begins, but unwilling to use the law to impose that view on others. Obama, in his own do-over to the Warren question, seems to be on the same page. He says that "when the soul enters" is a "theological question," which is correct. But, contra Biden's implication, the Catholic church's position on abortion is not based on a teaching about ensoulment; it is based on the view that all living human beings deserve not to be deliberately killed. So he does not "accept the teachings of his church" in the matter.

And for both of them the ensoulment question is a dodge. People disagree about whether 40-year-olds have souls. We don't leave 40-year-olds unprotected against homicide in order to avoid imposing our theological views on each other.