It has largely been glossed over in the reporting on John McCain’s alleged cheating at the Saddleback megachurch forum on Saturday, but he scored big points that night with Christian nationalists when he awarded full human rights to pre-embryonic fertilized cell masses:

WARREN: Let’s deal with abortion. I, as a pastor, have to deal with this all the time, every different angle, every different pain, all of the decisions and all of that. Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. Some people, people who believe that life begins at conception, believe that’s a holocaust for many people. What point is a baby entitled to human rights?

MCCAIN: At the moment of conception. (APPLAUSE). I have a 25- year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. And as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president. And this presidency will have pro-life policies. That’s my commitment. That’s my commitment to you.

What struck me when I saw McCain’s answer the first time was that his rapid blinking (at 00:27 in the video above) strongly suggests he’s lying — that he knows the science on this issue rules out any sort of human consciousness until an embryo is very well developed.

After sperm and egg combine at conception, the fertilized cells go through several stages before the embryo is formed. Among the first of these is the zygote, which is comprised of two cells bonded together. Zygotes do not have nervous systems, much less brains, and therefore, logically, they have no consciousness.

Of course, science and logic are not factors in this debate, and, predictably, McCain’s pretense that cell masses are humans completely snookered the hardcore fantasists within the GOP base:

“He was just right out of the box,” said Lynda Bell, the president of Florida Right to Life. “McCain was so incredibly decisive and he was so clear in his answers. There was no gray area.”

“They feel like this is the start of John McCain’s coming out, in terms of embracing the conservative evangelicals,” [George Andrews, the executive director of the Orange County, Calif., Republican Party] said, comparing the event to the 2000 primary debate in which George W. Bush named Jesus Christ as the philosopher who had influenced him most.

According to Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Christian conservatives were especially eager to hear this message from McCain.

“I think they needed to hear it and they needed to hear it when the question was asked in that way, that protections need to come at the moment of conception,” Land said. “That removes all doubt.”

Because cell masses have no nervous systems, it will be very difficult for Pres. McCain to ensure that most of their human rights are not violated:

Examples of rights and freedoms which are often thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education.

(It’s also unclear what his stand would be on torturing zygotes, since he has voted to allow the torture of post-embryonic humans.)

What never ceases to flummox me about this issue is that the same extremists who loathe the government are the ones who are demanding laws that would force American citizens to cede control of their reproductive systems to … the government. It is telling that they only advocate women giving up control of their reproductive functions, which brings to mind the quote from the lawyer and civil rights activist Florynce Kennedy that “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”

It goes without saying that what make McCain’s pandering to the extremists in his base dangerous is that if he is elected — which is at least a 50-50 proposition today — he will appoint rightwing activist Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.

Anyone who believes that individuals are better than government bureaucrats at making these sorts of personal decisions should take that into account when they decide whom to vote for in November.