TRANSCRIPT

CNN news anchor Chris Cuomo responding to criticism from a pro-choice gynecologist on Twitter calling his choice of panelist to discuss abortion on his show “disingenuous” tweeted the following:

“…but this is about politics mostly – and the pro-life position is more about faith and feeling than fact.”

How exactly did Cuomo come to believe that?

I’ve spoken to high schools and universities all across the United States and in other nations for the past eight years. The only time I mention feelings is when I explain to audiences too often taught to think with their emotions that how they feel about unborn human life is completely irrelevant to the moral discussion of abortion. What matters is how we answer the question, “What is the unborn?” The argument that the unborn is a full member of our human family and the proper object of our moral considerations is made with an appeal to the science of embryology, concerning when a human life begins, and philosophy, who counts as one of us.

Cuomo’s responses to questions in general display a certain confidence, perhaps born out of a track record of success in his field. In my job, I have had the privilege of working alongside and learning from philosophy professors at major universities, university research scientists, practicing OB/GYN’s, surgeons, lawyers including some who have argued before the Supreme Court and won, judges, and legislators. All of these men and women are equally as accomplished in their own fields as Cuomo, in some cases more so. Each and every one of them is also pro-life and not a single one of them advocates that position by an appeal to faith or feeling. They use facts.

Cuomo’s dismissal of the pro-life position is not grounded in reality. He is either woefully misinformed by choice or straw manning the pro-life position to excuse his laziness in picking panelist intended more to draw eyes than to provide clarity. Cuomo’s weak characterization of the pro-life position says far more about former than it does the latter.

This has been a Merely Human Minute with Jay Watts!