Marques Has Written His Own Definition of Conception

Statement by Dr. Randy Brinson, President, Christian Coalition of Alabama

July 21

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — At a candidate forum recorded July 19, I asked the candidates for Alabama's Second Congressional District about the sanctity of life. State Rep. Rhett Marques answered by saying two things that cannot both be true.

First he said this:

“Now, I do believe that life begins at conception. I do believe that.”

Then, in the same answer, he said this:

“Until that fertilized egg is put into the woman, that is where it starts.”

Those are not two ways of saying the same thing. If life begins at conception, it does not begin again later. If it starts when the embryo is placed in the womb, then it did not begin at conception. Representative Marques has taken the words Alabama Christians use and attached his own meaning to them.

Scripture does not leave this to our discretion. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” the Lord declares in Jeremiah 1:5. Psalm 139 teaches that each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made, that God saw our unformed substance and wrote down all our days before one of them came to be. The unborn child is known, formed, and valued by God from the beginning. There is no biblical loophole allowing a politician to decide that a child becomes human only when it is politically convenient.

Human life does not begin when a judge recognizes it, when a legislature protects it, or when a candidate finally becomes comfortable defending it. Life begins at conception. From that moment a unique human being exists, created in the image of God and entitled to protection.

That is why conception is not a term each candidate may define for himself. It is not a slogan we repeat to one another. It is a claim about what God has made and when He made it. A candidate who keeps the phrase while relocating the moment it describes has not affirmed our conviction. He has adopted our vocabulary.

The consequence is plain. When Representative Marques says he believes life begins at conception, Alabama Christians cannot know what he means by it, because by his own account he does not mean what the words say. An assurance that requires a private definition is not an assurance. It is a form of words.

There is no version of this in which both statements survive. One of them is his position and the other is not. He knows which. The voters of the Second District do not, and they are entitled to know, in his own words, without qualification and without a second definition held in reserve.

Every child is created by God. Every unborn life has value. A child conceived is a child, and that does not change depending on where the child is, how the child came to be, or what a candidate finds convenient to say in a given room.

I asked the question because the people of this state deserve to know what a candidate actually believes before they vote, not after. That is still true today.

The Christian Coalition of Alabama is a nonprofit organization advancing biblical values in Alabama public life.

The full candidate forum is available at ccalabama.org at THIS LINK or on YouTube and below: