FoxNews uses misleading, anti-science headline comparing persons to eggs

FoxNews typically does a better job than most mainstream media of portraying the abortion issue in a “fair and balanced” way.

But not this time.

FoxNews originally ran a story earlier today about the Mississippi Personhood Amendment with the headline:

“Push to Declare a Human Egg a ‘Person’ Offers New Tack on Abortion Debate”

FoxNews later changed the headline and switched “Human” for “Fertilized” in front of Egg.

Sadly, FoxNews has fallen into a trap the pro-abortion movement tries to use, claiming that pro-lifers believe a human egg is a person and that we want human eggs to receive legal protection. This is completely false, because pro-lifers actually know their biology and are proud to use science when making our case for protecting the dignity and right to life of the unborn.

First of all, there is a world of difference between an unfertilized female egg in a woman’s ovary and a fertilized egg that has combined with a male sperm to create a totally unique individual of the human species. “Fertilized egg” itself is a misleading phrase, and a host of scientific literature agrees that “a fertilized egg is an embryo.” Eggs don’t develop into human beings. Embryos do. And healthy embryos, when given the protection of their mother’s womb, will naturally develop in a continuous process over the coming months into a baby capable of living and breathing outside its mother’s womb. That’s science.

One of the most effective examples I’ve seen employed to underscore how people naturally acknowledge that there is something unique and special about an embryo is this: “If a human embryo is just a clump of cells would you be willing to eat a hundred embryos if I gave them to you on a spoon?”

Obviously such a proposition is revolting to us, but what we have to ask ourselves is why? The simple explanation is that we intuitively know that a human embryo is a human being — they are part of our human community and deserve our care and protection.

That’s why it’s misleading to call a tiny human being a “fertilized egg” — because it’s no longer an egg! It’s a human being with the same basic DNA makeup as the rest of us. It would be like calling one of our friends a “metabolized organism” — sure in one technical sense it may be accurate, but it misses the most important aspect of what makes human beings who they are. And what’s most important about human beings is who we are, not what stage of development we happen to be in the process of completing.

FoxNews is right to cover this important topic, but they are wrong when they use language that dehumanizes and diminishes the moral dimension of what the voters of Mississippi will soon decide – whether or not all human beings deserve dignity and the right to life, or only some do.