Woolley:

Superstitions:

1. Souls do not exist. You think they do but there is no proof that they do exist.

2. If they did exist, where are they? Anyone can see sperm and egg fertilizing and then splitting exponentially by taking a look at a microscope. Does your mythical soul direct from God just hang around until the cell count gets a bit bigger?

3. A human is not defined by biology. If that were true, any cell on our bodies would be human beings.

4. What is a human being? That is the central argument and one that philosophers, clergy, novelists, scientists and people since the beginning of time have never, ever defined with any type of consensus. It was not that long ago when a black person was not even considered a human being at all.

And, Woolley with the best response. Both sides of the polarized debate ignore that central question most of the time. When they aren't ignoring they're pretending they know the answer to an intractable question; "when does life begin?" or rephrased "what makes a person?" No Developmental Biology book is going to give you a reasonable answer. This question is central nonetheless because on the one hand you could have the government imposing its will on people's bodies and on the other you could have the government's blessing for people to impose their will on other people. Blast fax commendations!