c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Why is Tom Brokaw picking on Catholics?

There’s not a person on the planet who doesn’t know that Catholicism forbids abortion. Yet twice on “Meet the Press,” Brokaw has sucker-punched House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden by asking them to pinpoint the beginning of human life, to give “advice” to Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Why ask them? They are so-called “pro-choice” Catholic Democrats; they are not developmental biologists.

Pelosi and Biden took the bait and rendered moral judgments in response. But the question of “When does human life begin?” is answered in biology, not theology. The more important question _ the one Brokaw did not ask _ is the one everyone is debating: When does human life gain respect and rights?

To be more precise, at what point _ and how _ do we apply the religious dictum generally accepted by most Americans: Thou shalt not kill?

For the record, human life begins at conception.

The religious teaching comes later: All human life must be respected.

You have to wonder why Brokaw was using the late Tim Russert’s microphone to go after two of the most Catholic Democrats in the nation. Is there no one else to take his biology test?

Of course, the Democratic ticket is nailed to a platform that includes “abortion rights” as a major plank. Obama is widely understood to be on the wrong side of the pro-life fence, despite his nuanced answers when he gets beyond his “it’s above my pay grade” flippancy. Still, Obama has said he does not know what the question “when does life begin” means, something any high school biology textbook can explain.

But biology only defines the problem. At conception, a genetically distinct human being is formed, we know not exactly how. That human life is real _ not “potential” _ right away. So what’s the question?

Here is where the philosophers, theologians, judges and lawyers jump in. The difficult question is not “When does human life begin,” but, rather, what are we required to do in relation to that human life? The well-known Catholic answer is clear: It is to be respected from its inception to its natural death. When Pelosi and Biden were digging themselves in deeper with their Catholic bishops, they were recalling Medieval legal discussions about what level of crime is committed when abortion is induced at any given point during a pregnancy.

Pelosi and Biden’s Brokaw-induced waffling only highlights Christianity’s ancient objections to abortion. All the major presidential and vice presidential candidates are Christian. What will Brokaw ask the others? Will he ask real questions about life issues and about the implications of simple biology? Will he ask about embryonic stem cell research, and if the genetically distinct human being is the proper subject of experimentation?

Right now we label Obama and Biden as “pro-choice” and we label John McCain and Sarah Palin as “pro-life.”

Obama said not long ago at Messiah College he did not know whether the beginning of “life” meant “when a cell separates” or “when the soul stirs.”

McCain says life begins “at conception,” but seems to accept abortion for rape, incest and life of the mother. And he supports embryonic stem cell research.

For her part, Palin accepts abortion only if the mother’s life is clearly in danger. She has said that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the people should decide.

The people will in fact decide quite soon. With or without Tom Brokaw, in the broadest sense, our overarching questions _ whether about foreign or domestic policy, about economics or abortion _ are each and all about human life: beginning, middle, and end.

(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)

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