This is the time of year we hear religious groups demand that their legends be given space in the public square as it is being decorated for the winter holiday. When taxpayers - people of all faiths and those with no faith - who pay for the public square object to funding religious themes, Christians claim that secularists are killing Christmas.

How ironic to realize that Christians, in their zeal to legislate their religious beliefs, could be the ones to actually kill Christmas!

Consider the Ballot Initiative-36 that opponents of legal abortion are proposing for next year's election. Determined to ban both contraceptives and abortion, which they oppose on religious grounds, proponents have defined fertilization, the joining of the sperm and the egg, as conception, claiming the fertilized egg is a "person" because of its unique combination of DNA inherited from both parents.

This is in direct contradiction to medical science, which does not consider a pregnancy established until the fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus about two weeks after fertilization, a period during which many things can happen. Up to 60% of fertilized eggs may be eliminated by natural bodily functions. Those eggs that do make it to implantation can undergo a split during this time, creating identical twins, or two eggs can fuse into one individual. Science therefore defines conception as the successful implantation of the fertilized egg. It takes no position on personhood before birth.

Besides banning contraceptives and abortion, granting legal "personhood" from the moment of fertilization would also severely restrict in-vitro fertilization and completely curtail embryonic stem cell research.

This far-reaching opposition stems from one important pivotal point: the 1966 Papal Conference on Population and Birth Control, which debated changing the Church's opposition to contraceptives. A change, it was decided, would mean the Pope was not infallible.* So because of that religious dogma we now have a worldwide population problem intensifying global climate change.

Since proponents plan to use churches for collecting signatures for this proposed Initiative, potential signers should consider the theological implications of granting "personhood" to fertilized eggs. With fertilization the point of ensoulment, what happens to the many soul/persons that never get implanted and therefore never get born? The Catholics recently abolished Limbo, so where do those unbaptized egg/person souls go now? And what about the fertilized eggs that do get implanted that have split into twins - are they only half-persons or half-souls each? Do the fused egg pregnancies contain double-persons? Double-souls? Voters need to consider the dilemmas caused by using religious dogma as a basis for laws.

But even more challenging is the fact that redefining personhood has severe implications for the Christmas story of the Virgin Birth. If Jesus was conceived immaculately, as the story says, with no sperm present to fertilize the egg, was he really a human person? And if not human, did he truly suffer on the cross? That possibility would call into question the whole theology of redemption. On the other hand, if Jesus was indeed human, as defined by this Initiative, then the story of the Virgin Birth cannot be true, because male sperm had to be present to supply the unique DNA necessary for creating "personhood."

Religionists who insist on turning their beliefs into law may be doing more harm to the Christmas legend than secularists ever could!

* Read "Why the Pope can't change the Church's Position on Birth Control" at http://www.population-security.org/STLouis99.html