GOP lawmaker pushes anti-abortion propaganda bill with scientific, antisemitic lies

Among other things, WV State Sen. Mike Azinger falsely claimed there's a "flash of light" at conception thanks to God

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A lawmaker from West Virginia called evolution a “quickly dying theory,” claimed that there’s a “flash of light” the moment sperm meets egg which amounts to a sign from God, and insisted that all Jews believe life begins at the moment of conception.

Those lies were all told by Republican State Sen. Mike Azinger during a floor debate on SB 468, a controversial bill that would force public school students to watch right-wing propaganda regarding child development.

The bill explicitly says students would have to watch “Meet Baby Olivia,” a video produced by the anti-abortion group Live Action.

Early in the video, after a sperm fertilizes an egg, the narrator claims, “This is the moment that life begins.” (It is not.) It also refers to stages of development using the made-up term “weeks after fertilization” instead of weeks after the last menstrual cycle, which would be medically accurate. The narrator also refers to a “fetal heartbeat” even though, at six weeks, it’s not a fetus and literally doesn’t have a heart.

The video has been criticized by groups who actually know what they’re talking about:

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a professional organization with over 60,000 members, said in an email that the video is anti-abortion misinformation “designed to manipulate the emotions of viewers.”

…

Iowa physicians and educators said in a letter to state lawmakers that by using weeks after fertilization, the video misleads viewers because the framing indicates milestones happen about two weeks earlier than is accurate.

On Tuesday, the bill was being debated in the State Senate when Sen. Azinger rose up to defend it.

First, he responded to a Democrat who pointed out Jewish people do not believe life begins at conception and that teaching public school students otherwise amounted to religious discrimination.

First of all, it's essentially an absurdity that all Jewish people believe that lifehood, for lack of a better term, begins at another time other than conception.

Any Jew who believes the first five books of the Bible would, by definition, believe that life begins at conception because Genesis 4:1, for one example, says “And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived.”

There. Right there. “Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bare Cain.” So any Jew that believes the Torah, which is first five books of the Bible, I believe, would have to believe that.

He’s flat-out wrong about everything he just said. The Talmud says life begins “when the baby’s head emerges from the mother’s body.” To insist all Jews share one mind on this issue, and then to get that issue backwards, could be described as a form of antisemitism

The Bible verse he quoted doesn’t even say anything to the contrary; it just says Eve had a baby. Even if she did, so what?!

More importantly, 83% of Jews support abortion rights, according to the Pew Research Center in 2018, and that’s before Roe was overturned.

For Azinger, a Baptist and Christian Nationalist, it’s not surprising that he pretended to be an expert on Judaism or that he got it all wrong.

But that wasn’t nearly as idiotic as the next thing he said.

All of a sudden, we have a lot of senators who are all upset and worried about accuracies in science class. I think it was the senator from Taylor who mentioned that, “Hey, look, evolution's been taught in science class for how long now?” And that's a quickly dying theory that many, many understand to be an absurdity in and of itself, just because it can't pass the first test of First Cause.

So this is a great bill. It shows conception. And Google it: At the very nanosecond of conception, there's a flash of light. When conception occurs in human beings, and I believe it's across the whole animal kingdom, at the point, the second, of conception, there is a flash of light.

That's God telling us, I believe, that life begins there.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Evolution is not a “quickly dying theory” in any place except the fever dreams of Creationist Ken Ham. We teach evolution because the evidence fully supports it, not because it’s some liberal religious belief. Arguing that the promotion of anti-abortion propaganda belongs in science class because we teach accurate science regarding evolution is harmful and utterly inaccurate.

Just because West Virginia Republicans don’t understand the theory and instead cling to a religious lie isn’t a valid justification to teach kids a different kind of religious lie.

Also, when sperm meets egg, there’s no “flash of light.” That myth is based on a 2016 scientific paper that documented the release of zinc that accompanies egg activation. Because the zinc was coded with a special tag, scientists were able to illuminate its release at the moment of fertilization… leading a bunch of ignorant writers to claim there’s a “spark” at conception. They were wrong.

Here’s how the National Catholic Register (!!!) accurately described what’s happening:

Researchers wanted to see the zinc, so they simulated fertilization in the lab and put the eggs in a solution containing a fluorescent tag (FluoZin™-3). When the zinc is released, it is chemically labeled because this tag bonds to it. The tag (also called a fluorophore) can be illuminated with light of one color, and it emits light of a different, specific color. That “fluorescence” can be detected under a suitable microscope, thus revealing the zinc.

All of that is to say there’s no flash of light at conception. God is not sending us a sign of when life begins. And Mike Azinger, along with all the staffers who work for him, are too damn ignorant to look into any of this.

Now they want to spread their ignorance to children.

The bill ultimately passed in the Senate on a 27-6 vote. It will now head to the GOP-dominated State House.

Public school students across West Virginia are one step closer to being lied to in their classrooms thanks to conservative lawmakers who are hellbent on replacing science with religious propaganda.

West Virginia is currently ranked 47th in the nation when it comes to education. Now you know why.

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