baby.jpgPro-aborts on this site have called preborn humans everything from parasites to humans but not persons, whatever that means. Now, the courts may decide this critical point. Reports the New York Times today….

A South Dakota law that would require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure would “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” will be revisited today by the 11 judges of the federal appeals court in St. Louis….
The appeals court hearing is a second take on an October decision by a three-judge panel of the same body, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, that the law should remain blocked because it supplements factual information with a value judgment….

South Dakota’s attorney general, Larry Long, said the appeal was largely based on the one dissenting view on the three-judge panel: that the required disclosure was an obvious fact. The State Legislature, Mr. Long said, had defined “human being” to mean a member of the species homo sapiens, and that phrase does not include a value judgment….
“What we are fighting is the imposition of a state mandated non-science-based script read by a doctor to a patient in an attempt to intimidate the patient,” said Sarah Stoesz, the chief executive for Planned Parenthood in the three-state region of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota….

Meanwhile, reports New Scientist magazine….
chimp.jpg

In a ground-breaking case… [in] Austria, a judge is to rule over the “humanness” of a chimp – specifically, over whether it deserves a legal guardian.
The chimpanzee in question is called Hiasl. He was born in the Sierra Leone jungle in 1981, captured by animal traders and illegally shipped to Austria, destined for a vivisection lab. Customs officials intercepted the crate and Hiasl was handed to an animal sanctuary. Now, years later, the sanctuary has gone bankrupt and Hiasl is to be sent to a zoo.
Hence the trial. Paula Stibbe, a British woman, has applied to the court to be named Hiasl’s legal guardian, saying it deserves the same rights as a human. So the chimp – which shares 96% of its DNA with humans – is having its personhood debated.
Primatologists and legal experts have spoken up in support of Hiasl having human legal status. Volker Sommer, a primatologist at London University, says chimps are not just one of the homo genus – he believes they should be considered as the same species as contemporary humans.

This answer is easy for Christians. The Bible says humans are made in the image of God, which is what makes us unique. But how do those disdaining the Bible, or claiming there is no God, or disputing that preborn humans are human make the distinction?
[Photo of Hiasl courtesy of New Scientist]

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