The Schizophrenia of the United States of America
A 10-12 Week-Old Fetus
Unless you’ve been living on some remote island, you know that the Senate Judiciary Committee is questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s legal views. In questioning Sotomayor, Senator Tom Coburn (Oklahoma) gave this money quote:
“We now record fetal heartbeats at 14 days, post-conception. We record fetal brain waves at 39 days, post-conception. And I don’t expect you to answer this, but I do expect you to pay attention to it as you contemplate these big issues: We have this schizophrenic rule of the law, where we have defined death as the absences of [a heartbeat and brain waves] but we refuse to define life as the presence of those.”
In the United States, death is defined as the absences of a heartbeat and brain waves, but life is not defined as the presence of a heartbeat and brain waves. Only in America.
