On AlterNet, Ari Melber asks, "Does the Democratic Party still stand for human rights and civil liberties?" As a pro-life Democrat, I've often wondered about that myself!

Anti-war demonstrators often carry signs saying, "Bombing for peace is like screwing for chastity." The same could be said of killing (or even threatening to kill) doctors and abortion providers in the name of the "sanctity of life."

Abortion policy must be completely secular. In 1797, America made a treaty with Tripoli, declaring that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” This reassurance to Islam was written under Washington’s presidency and approved by the Senate under John Adams.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a physician who presided over 60,000 abortions before changing sides on the abortion issue, wrote in his 1979 book Aborting America: “The U.S. statutes against abortion have a non-sectarian history. They were put on the books when Catholics were a politically insignificant minority...even the Protestant clergy was not a major factor in these laws. Rather, the laws were an achievement of the American Medical Association.

“Traditionally, religion opposes abortion because ‘the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.’ What about atheists like myself who do not believe in the existence of a personal God? I think that abortion policy ought not be beholden to a sectarian creed...In the case of abortion, however, we can and must decide on the biological evidence...without resorting to scriptures, revelations, creeds, hierarchical decrees, or belief in God. Even if God does not exist, the fetus does.”

In 1827, Von Baer determined fertilization to be the starting point of individual human life. By the 1850s, medical communities were advocating legislation to protect the unborn. In 1859, the American Medical Association protested legislation which protected the unborn only after “quickening.”

A rational, secular case thus exists for the rights of the unborn. Individual human life is a continuum from fertilization until death. Zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, adolescent, adult, etc. are all different stages of human development. To destroy that life at any stage of development is to destroy that individual.

The real question in the abortion debate is not the seemingly absurd scenario of giving full human rights to human zygotes, but rather the thorny question of how to legally protect those rights without violating a new mother’s privacy and civil liberties.

Recognizing the rights of another class of beings limits our freedoms and our choices and requires a change in our lifestyle—the abolition of (human) slavery is a good example of this. A 1964 New Jersey court ruling required a pregnant woman to undergo blood transfusions—even if her religion forbade it—for the sake of her unborn child.

One could argue, therefore—apart from religion—that recognizing the rights of the unborn, like the rights of blacks, women, lesbians and gays, children, animals, and the environment, is a sign of social progress.

The humanity of the unborn: Are the unborn human? Yes. Biologically, the unborn are not only human, they have an individual human genetic identity; 46 human chromosomes. Virtually all medical authorities (physicians, biologists, etc.) agree with geneticist Ashley Montagu who wrote: “the fact is simple. Life begins not at birth, but at conception.”

J. Lejeune of Paris, discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down’s syndrome, observed: “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

When does human life begin? “At conception,” states Professor W. Bowes of the University of Colorado. Professor M. Matthews-Roth of Harvard writes: “It is scientifically correct to say that individual human life begins at conception.” Dr. Mary Calderon of Planned Parenthood in the 1960s, wrote: “Fertilization has taken place; a baby has been conceived.”

Everything that defines a person physically is present at fertilization—only oxygen, nutrients and time to develop are required. The unborn child has his or her own genetic code, EEG trackings, and circulatory system. Often, the blood type and sex of the unborn child will also differ from that of the mother.

The heart of the unborn child begins beating at 18 days, and is pumping blood at 21 days. The brain is functioning at 40 days—EEG trackings have been made at less than six weeks gestation. The unborn child responds to stimuli by the sixth to eighth week. Rapid Eye Movements (REMs) characteristic of actual dream states, are present in 23 weeks. There are clearly two distinct individuals (mother and child) present during pregnancy.

“I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity.”

---Declaration of Geneva

World Medical Association

September, 1948

“The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”

---A Declaration of the Rights of the Child

United Nations General Assembly, 1959

“Is birth control an abortion?”

“Definitely not. An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.”

---Planned Parenthood pamphlet

August 1963

“Every person has the right to have his life respected, this right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”

---American Convention on Human Rights in San Jose

November 22, 1969

“The reverence of each and every human life has been the keystone of Western medicine... it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not put forth under socially impeccable auspices.”

---Editorial,

Journal of the California State Medical Association

September 1970