018: Ensoulment and the Issue of Animal Rights
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Brian Johnston gives an overview of why the assertion of the right to live is not based on the theological question of Ensoulment. The right to life is based on self-evident truths as demonstrated through observation and demonstrated in the laws of nature.   “Ensoulment” is an issue which is often raised regarding the question of the right to life of a pre-born child. But this issue of when the soul enters the body is solely one of conjecture and religious opinion. The invocation of such a question is merely an invitation to uncertainty and ultimately leads to a lack of conviction regarding protection for that child. The right to life, on the other hand, is based solely on self-evident truths that are demonstrable and can be shown objectively, and is not determined on personal predilection or personal enlightenment in opinion. The founders of United States asserted that this was necessary in establishing justice and that, in fact, right to life was the first and most immediate of the self-evident truths established for the purpose of government to protect. Brian tells the story of his cat “Tiger.” The friendship and comfort we get from animals is often confused with a question of soul and is currently being used to promote the notion of animal rights. It is critically important that this very pernicious idea, that an animal should have the same rights as a human being, be confronted for what it is: a confusing assertion, based not much on fact, but in our emotional feelings towards those animals. The protection of innocent children in the womb is based upon scientific evidence. Common law protected the child after quickening, but protection of the child from conception began in England in the mid-1800s after Sir Thomas Barry had witnessed conception is the beginning of human life in the modern microscope. By 1860, the British Parliament had enacted the “Crimes Against the Person Act,” making all abortions a felony. The United Kingdom had moved to outlaw the slave trade long before the United States rose to the proper understanding of the humanity of the slave. Similarly, the United Kingdom rose to the protection of the unborn child long before the United States. An American student at the University of Edinburgh was in fact studying childbirth at the time. His name was Dr. Horatio Storer and he became the Father of Modern Gynecology. On his return to the States, he took it upon himself to similarly pass laws to protect that vulnerable child who had been denied legal protection. Storer, along with the American Medical Association, went state by state, not asserting his faith as the premise, but asserting the self-evident, scientific truths of the child's life in the womb which was demonstrable and which was beyond debate. Those are the laws that were in effect up until 1973. Those laws are obviously under attack, but what is worse is that logical thinking is under attack with the new assertion that animals are essentially the same as human beings and should be afforded the same rights. There is confusion in both mind and heart regarding this battle of ideas and even well-meaning Christians have errantly been seduced by such thinking. It is vitally important to understand the battle of ideas that human laws are first and foremost designed to protect human lives; that animals should indeed be cared for and protected, but they are of an entirely different nature than the laws which need to be in place for human beings. Professor Peter Singer is one of many thought leaders who is forcing on the culture the idea that animals are in fact in some cases more worthy than certain human beings of having their lives protected. This is a direct assault on the right to life.