Other articles by Gilbert Shapiro:

We can help feds by living healthier Bill sneaks religion into schools Guest Opinion: 'Bible science' misses the point of validationGuest Opinion: Divine intercession doesn't stand a prayer

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At Pastor Rick Warren's recent faith forum, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain stated his strong personal belief, consistent with the Christian "pro-life" position, that the moment of conception creates a human being requiring human rights protection.

Christianity has always held that at conception the sperm-egg union is given a "soul." This is the core underlying (but seldom stated) reason this newly formed entity requires, in their view, human rights.

The Center for Inquiry Community of Southern Arizona considers the "soul" a theological concept that should not influence elected representatives who are required to legislate following non-religious guidelines.

Secularists also see using the "soul" in the abortion debate as unscientific (the existence of the soul is an untestable hypothesis); incoherent (if souls exist, they are of no apparent benefit to the majority of fertilized eggs); and unfair (the "soul" argument influences the public through guilt and fear rather than by rational thought).

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is considering a rule change to redefine "abortion" to include birth control. It would allow health-care providers to withhold information and care options from patients because these options conflict with the provider's religious beliefs. This could be enacted without a vote in Congress.

Such a rule change would be a clear violation of the separation of church and state. It also makes no sense either scientifically or philosophically.

The President's Council on Bioethics reported in 2004 that an estimated 47 percent to 80 percent of all fertilized eggs/embryos (normal and abnormal) traditionally produced are naturally aborted.

These statistics must be shocking and morally alarming to "pro-life" women. Does each menstrual flow possibly contain a dead child? Should funerals be considered after miscarriages? Has their God played any role in these natural abortions?

Hypothetically, if there were a pill to maintain the gestation of a grossly malformed or severely developmentally disabled fetus that the body might naturally abort, would these women who canonize the sanctity of any and all human life take such a pill to preserve their pregnancy?

Indeed, while great strides have been made to reduce infant mortality, there have been surprisingly no cries from the pro-life community to redirect research dollars to find the reason for this apparent "human" holocaust.

The irony here, of course, is that if more government-supported embryonic research were allowed, the chances for these potential human beings to become actual ones would probably increase.

Philosophers and theologians have proposed many conflicting hypotheses about souls and ensoulment. The dilemma is how a loving and merciful Higher Power could place a human soul in the embryo of a victim of brutal rape; a soon to be severely malformed fetus which will die in the womb, shortly after birth or live a possibly painful, "vegetable-like" existence; or in a person who will become a mass murderer?

But there is a more basic and profound question. Does a "soul" exist? Consider the following.

At what moment, in the continuum of the evolution of humans from non-humans (over the past hundreds of thousands of years) did ensoulment first occur? Was some particular child ensouled whose parents were not? This is unlikely since there is no precise demarcation point between us Homo sapiens and our ancesters.

Unless all these questions can be answered rationally, this tenuous "ensouled human beings" hypothesis should be considered only a theological concept. It should have no influence on governmental regulations.