Ken Burrows, writing for the very secular site TheHumanist, wants to warn us of dangers lurking in the proposed Sanctity of Human Life Act. He thinks the bill, cosponsored by 31 Congressional Republicans, is “astonishingly sweeping” and “harmful.”

He tries hard to explain why we should be alarmed — give him credit for that — but his reasons come up empty. Let’s take a quick look at four bad reasons, then a longer look at what he really despises about the bill.

Inconsistency, Name-Calling and More

First, he complains, all the bill’s sponsors are men. Apparently men shouldn’t have opinions on abortion. That’s Ken Burrows’ opinion on abortion. He fails the consistency test there; need I say more?

Second, the bill asserts that “‘the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution’ … is the “most fundamental right of a person.’”  You might not find that so alarming — I certainly don’t! Burrows even admits it “sounds simple and even noble.” But he sees significant danger lurking there: “It does not accommodate any special-circumstance exceptions, not even the widely accepted one of allowing an abortion to save a mother’s life.”

That’s nonsense. It may not mention any special-circumstance exceptions, but that doesn’t prevent it from accommodating them. Human beings’ right to life is real, but it is not absolute. The law has always allowed killing in self-defense — when a person’s life is in genuine, imminent danger, and there’s no other recourse.

Third, Burrows says, the bill “would open an unfathomable conundrum as to the fate of excess embryos.” Actually, it puts the question on the table for discussion where it belongs. It seems he thinks it’s a bad idea, though, to open up a serious moral conversation on it. Far better just to default to the status quo, and why not? His side gets to assume they’re right. Burrows’ political motivation here is even harder to hide than the embryos he hopes we can keep on ignoring.

Fourth, it has “religious tenets” behind it. That’s not a reason, it’s name-calling. Good ideas can come from any source. There are religious tenets behind laws against stealing and perjury, after all.

Who’s Playing God?

Finally, there is the part he despises most, which he calls “the most contemptible aspect of SHLA.” The politicians sponsoring it are “playing God,” he says, “arrogantly insistent on defining a debatable concept like personhood from their perspective only.”

He reminds us how even Christians have disagreed on the personhood question. Why, even St. Augustine waffled on it, and St. Thomas Aquinas said it happened some time after the embryo was created. Religious people don’t all agree even today!

Burrows doesn’t realize how these charges backfire on him. So defining personhood is playing God? Abortion supporters insist personhood doesn’t become real until some point (often a suspiciously convenient one) late in pregnancy — or even after the child is born. If that isn’t defining personhood, what is it?

So Burrows and other pro-choicers play God too, by his own definition. Is that a bad thing?

From a Christian point of view, we can say that we’re listening to what God has said. That’s not playing God, it’s letting Him be God as He really is, with ourselves yielding to His will. He says, “You shall not kill,” so we don’t kill.

But in fact we don’t have to talk about God at all in this case. We could also say that we’re looking at the natural law. We’re not playing God, we’re respecting the moral law of the universe. Burrows could see the same thing too, if he wanted. The natural law says, “Do not kill the innocent,” so we don’t kill the innocent.

Playing God

But suppose we’re both playing God? There is playing God, and there is playing God. There is the person who “plays God” by saying, “That child is really a human person, and deserves to live.” Even if you’re not sure, that’s the safe decision. Save the life in case the child is a person.

And there is the person who plays God by saying, “Kill the thing. I’ve decided it’s definitely not a person.” That’s really playing God. You’re giving yourself the power over life and death. Nothing more God-like than that.

If Ken Burrows thinks it’s contemptible that politicians are playing God with this bill, fine. We might take him seriously — if he weren’t so happy playing God with young, innocent children’s lives.