My Conversation with CNN Journalist Chris Cuomo

“If you want to be a leader of the future, that’s a question that deserves an answer that is definitive beyond your faith. When does life begin?”

Last Friday, August 7, 2015, Republican Presidential Candidate Senator Marco Rubio was on CNN’s Chris Cuomo’s show discussing abortion.  After an excellent defense of his stance on abortion in the cases of rape and incest, Rubio went on stating that protecting human life under the law is a timeless principle.

Rubio: “The idea that human life is worthy of protection is a timeless principle, I don’t care how much the world changes.”

Cuomo: “You are deciding when it is human life

Rubio: “No! Science has decided when it is human life!”
Cuomo: “Science has not decided that it is at conception”

Rubio: “Let me correct you. Science has. Absolutely it has. Science has concluded that. What else could it be?”

They continued bantering back and forth with Cuomo stating at least 4 times that science does not say when life begins. He kept interrupting Rubio telling him that that was his faith telling him when life begins, not science. Rubio calmly restated that it was science. Towards the end Cuomo made a statement that I agree with. He said, “If you want to be a leader of the future, that’s a question that deserves an answer that is definitive beyond your faith? When does life begin?”

As much as I am a man of faith, I agree with Cuomo that if you are governing a nation of people with many different beliefs, you cant always make decisions and laws justified by just your religion. Not everyone will agree with you and there will be many issues. I personally believe that it is impossible to rightly govern a nation without the morals of the Bible, but there are many specific issue that are not covered much in scripture that we deal with in America. Abortion is alluded to in scripture and it is listed as a sin, murder. But to someone who doesn’t believe in the Bible, that doesn’t mean anything to them. Thankfully science backs up scripture on this matter.

When I first started getting involved with Pro-Life work almost 5 years ago, all I knew was that scripture says life begins at conception and that murdering another human being was a sin. It was pretty straightforward to me. But I quickly found out that that argument wasn’t good enough to those who didn’t believe in scripture. I was faced with an angry college student demanding scientific evidence, and I had nothing to give him. Thus began my journey looking into what science said on the issue. That summer I attended Summit Ministries’ Christian Worldview Conference. During those amazing two weeks I met and listened to two men who changed the course of my life. Dr. Mike Adams, an atheist-turned-Christian Criminology professor, and Scott Klusendorf, a pro-life apologist. It was by listening to them speak and later talking to them and reading their books that I realized that science was conclusive as to when life begins. The science of embryology and fetal development as well as all the leading medical text books in those fields tell that human life begins at conception. To quote Scott Klusendorf, “Scientifically, we know that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Leading Embryology Text books confirm this”. 

I have spent the past 5 years reading material from textbooks, scientists, and expert medical testimonies, all of which have confirmed that life begins at conception. So, knowing that, I was taken aback when Chris Cuomo said that science did not say when life began, and that he wasn’t stating his view on the matter. Well, Chris, it seems like that you WERE quoting your view, and it is a view that is out of line with what science has concluded.

I took to Twitter and sent him the following in a span of 32 tweets (curse the 140 character limit) :

"I just watched the abortion interview with Rubio. You should do your research. Science tells us when life begins. It's not faith. You shouldn't make such rash statements on TV based on your opinion when they are completely opposite of what science says. When life begins is NOT a matter of faith its a matter of science! Its answered with clarity by the science of human embryology.

Scientifically, we know that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Leading Embryology Text books confirm this. TW Sadler's "Langman's Embryology", Moore's "The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology", and O'Rahilly & Muller's "Human Embryology and Teratology". Just to name a few. The facts of reproduction are straightforward. Upon completion of the fertilization, sperm and egg have ceased to exist, what exists is a single cell with 46 chromosomes (23 from each parent) that is called a zygote. The coming into existence of the zygote is the point of conception--the beginning of the life of a new human organism. The terms zygote, embryo and fetus all refer to developmental stages in the life of a human being. The preborn meets all the biological criteria for life: metabolism, cellular reproduction & reaction to stimuli. The preborn is human. She possesses a human genetic signature that proves this beyond any doubt. She is also the offspring of human parents, and we know that humans can only beget humans. 

The preborn is genetically and functionally distinct from (though dependent on and resting inside of) the pregnant woman. Her growth & maturation is internally directed. Her DNA is unique and different from that of any other cell in the woman's body. She develops her own arms, legs, brain, central nervous system, etc. To say that a fetus is a part of the pregnant woman's body is to say that the woman has 4 arms and 4 legs. Also if you say that then you are saying that about half of pregnant women have penises. 

The preborn is a whole or complete (though immature) organism. That is, she is not a mere part of another living thing, but is her own organism--an entity whose parts work together in a self-integrated fashion to bring the whole to maturity. Her genetic information is fully present at conception, determining to a large extent her physical characteristics she needs only a suitable environment and nutrition to develop herself through the different stages of human life. Thus, the preborn is a distinct, living & whole human organism--a full-fledged member of the species Homo sapiens, like you and me."

In 1981 a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee heard expert testimony on the question of when life begins. "Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being--a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."

The report also noted "no witness [who testified before the subcommittee] raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species. No witness challenged the scientific consensus that unborn children are 'human beings,' insofar as the term is used to mean living beings of the human species."

There are plenty of groups that are NOT religious and believe life begins at conception based solely on science Secular Pro-Life as well as Life Matters Journal. It's time you look into what science says rather than stating your opinions.

Most of what I posted is from Scott Klusendorf’s books “The Case For Life” and “Stand For Life”. Both books are amazing and I highly recommend reading them! I’m a stickler for facts, and if someone is quoting something to be true and it is not true, I will correct them on it. I do it to help them and to educate them on the truth, not to shame or embarrass them. (My grade school teachers called that talking back and being disrespectful, but I beg to differ. If they would’ve stated the truth to begin with we wouldn’t have had those discussions). I seriously doubted that he would respond, but lo and behold, the great Chris Cuomo DID respond. This was his response:

I quickly responded:

On the program you said nothing about personhood.  You said science. You said science hasn't said whether it's human or not. You won't find the issue of personhood in science. That's an opinion that people have when they don't want a group to be human. Hitler's views on personhood were that Jews were lesser of people. Slave owners' views on personhood were that blacks were lesser of people. Pro-choice people's view of personhood is that the preborn babies are lesser of persons. Science says that Jews, blacks, & preborn babies are all equally human. Oppressors of them are the ones who say they aren't people. Science has come to the consensus that the life of a human being begins at conception. That's a scientific fact.

Can you name any other group of human being that isn't considered a "person"?

As expected, I received no further response from him. As like many reporters and journalists, he misspoke and instead of admitting his mistake and then clarifying what he meant to say, he dodged the question and brought up an entirely different argument.

I know the “personhood” debate is big among pro-life and pro-choice debaters, especially those who like philosophy. After all, it is a philosophical issue. But, as much as people love philosophy, I never could understand it. The only thing I can remember in my college philosophy class was that we spent weeks discussing the question of  “do we really exist? Or are we just robots programed to think we are humans and exist? And if we are robots, how are we aware that we are robots programed to think we are humans?” Honestly, I think that many of the philosophers we studied were as high as a kite when they came up with some of these theories and questions. In fact, my crazy professor told us that most of them were in fact on opium or drunk. (Go figure!).  I tend to go by a simple logical approach. (Yes I know that can be considered philosophy too, but whatever). My simple logic approach tells me to look at the definitions of words. Lets look up “Human”. According to Merriam-Webster, a Human is “a person: a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens)”. And a Person is “a human being”. Wow! Pretty straight forward, the two words are synonymous.

As I told Mr. Cuomo, the main three groups of human beings in our history that have been declared as a lesser type of human beings or persons are black slaves, Jews, and the preborn humans. It's always the oppressor who comes up with the claim that the people they benefit or profit from aren't equal humans. The slave owners and the Klu Klux Klan, the Nazis, and Pro-Choice people each began by systematically dehumanizing an entire group of people to justify savage acts of violence. The slave owners and the KKK called black slaves “3/5 of a person”, “Apes”, “property”, “weeds”, and “parasites”. The Nazis called the Jews “inferior persons”, “rats”, “swine”, “vermin”, and “parasites”. Pro-Choice advocates call preborn babies “non-persons”, “potential persons”, “tissue”, “clumps of cells”, “tumors”, “parasites”, and “products of conception”. All three of these groups of human beings are equally human to each other and equally human to their oppressors. They were given dehumanizing names so that the oppressors could treat them unlike humans. All three were not considered persons under the law, and they had no rights.

I have yet to legitimately see or hear of any other groups of people that qualify as humans but not persons.

Although I am honored (I use that word lightly) and glad that Mr Cuomo responded to my tweets, this exchange goes to show that not only does Cuomo not speak truthfully on air, but that he also holds to radical views that were prominent among the KKK and Nazis. He holds to the same ideologies that they do about the value of human life. It is quite sad; although an increasingly popular view today.

The conversation with Chris Cuomo only reinforces my view of reporters and journalists. I’ve been interviewed in local and national publications, both liberal and conservative, and they have all misquoted me or twisted my words in some form or another to fit their story. They don’t care about the truth; they just want a good story. To quote film director and screenwriter Joss Whedon, “The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.”

By the time you have finished reading this post, approximately 24 innocent human beings have been killed by abortion, adding onto the current 56 million killed since 1973. Regardless of one’s political party, religious beliefs, or occupation, we should all agree with what science says and we should all agree that all human beings have value and should be equally protected under the law. That, as Senator Rubio says, is a timeless principle.