In defense of the unborn, where are Republicans?

By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO

On January 29, 2020, nine Alaska Republican House members voted against moving HB 178, an act which would interpret the right-to-privacy clause of the Alaska State Constitution to include the unborn.  

The nine were Bart LeBon, District 1; Steve Thompson, District 2; Kelly Merrick, District 14; Louise Stutes, District 22; Chuck Kopp, District 24; Mel Gillis, District 25; Laddie Shaw, District 26; Jennifer Johnston, District 28; and Gary Knopp, District 30. Mark Neuman, Republican, District 8, mysteriously got up and left the House chamber just before the vote and was held absent, which may raise constituent questions.

The Constitution of the State of Alaska declares, in Article I, Section 1, that “all persons have a natural right to life,” and the Constitution of the State of Alaska further declares in Article I, Section 7, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.    

My personal belief is these sections have always applied to the unborn, a person, a human being regarded as an individual, yet our state government and our own legislature, those representing us, have not caught up with the fact that “the science is settled.”

SETTLED SCIENCE  

We hear so much today from the Left regarding climate change and the “science is settled”, yet those of us who have a smidgen of discernment, curiosity and inquiry know that is almost never the case as science continues to discover something new continually regarding this and so much more.

This is the same for just about everything science envelops with one exception. The major branches of science include chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, and biology.  In the science of biology is that one exception. And that is the answer to the question of life at conception.

The question of the life at conception science has concluded that indeed it is settled.  It is life and therefore life at conception is a person, a human being regarded as an individual.

Pythagoras who first proposed that the Earth was round sometime around 500 B.C. waited patiently and posthumously for centuries before our collective body of knowledge and experience agreed with him.  Thus, overcoming centuries of denial, ignorance and unintelligence, we now take for granted something that was not only denied for centuries, but those who denied at the time the conventional thought of “flat world” were persecuted, tortured and put to death.  

Like this universal cognition and after navigation, observation and experience, we as the human race using scientific methodology have reached conclusions about our natural existence. These conclusions stand until someone or something provides a new component to introduce new hypothesizing.

Yet at this rare moment of exception, where science and social standards actually have the remarkable opportunity to agree and co-exist not just scientifically but morally, these nine legislators have decided to ignore the facts.  

• The fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a person, a human life regarded as an individual, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote, a fertilized human ovum, is pronounced by scientific findings throughout the scientific world as an undeniable conclusion.  

• The fact that, at the moment of conception, the entire genetic road map of a person, a human being regarded as an individual, is created within the fertilized human ovum is an undeniable conclusion.

• The fact that the human embryo, the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation through this genetic map, becomes known as a fetus, a person, a human being regarded as an individual,is an undeniable conclusion.  

• The fact that the human fetus, a person, a human being regarded as an individual, to birth, is alive and cognizant of its environment is an undeniable conclusion.

Nowhere is the denial of these undeniable conclusions more evident than with the Alaska House where these nine Republican legislators not only ignore their own Republican Party platform and arrogantly and defiantly deny the proof which science has promulgated. The arrogance and defiance of this is morally wrong.

Will we as Alaskans willingly allow this to go unchallenged?  Will we as Alaskans allow these Alaska House representatives to continue the disaster of our lifetimes known as abortion?  

We as Republicans have primaries and elections coming up this year.  It is time that we put the unborn first in front of all these nine Alaska House representatives and adopt House Bill 178.

Michael Tavoliero is the chairman of House District 12-14 of the Alaska Republican Party.