NASA’s Mars announcement, and the irony of our search for life

He fidgeted in his chair, hardly able to contain his excitement. It was like watching a child try to sit still on a long car ride to Chuck E. Cheese.
“Do you realize how big this could be?” my co-worker seemed to ask the room in general just minutes before NASA’s announcement Monday that evidence of salt water was found on the planet Mars.
The news conference was teased earlier in the day, so the content of the big reveal wasn’t a surprise. It was more the anticipation of the reaction.
“Finding water means there is a chance we could find life. A single-cell amoeba or anything to prove there is life beyond our planet. How exciting!” he exclaimed.
And it dawned on me at that moment just how ironic the situation had become. How scientists were blown away just to find circumstances that would be suitable for life. Finding some salt water was grounds for celebration. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if they did happen to locate an amoeba or two. It is possible the scientific world would implode from sheer jubilation alone.
I’m not trying to downplay science. There is a definite place for that in our lives. God gifted certain individuals with an amazing talent for exploring His handiwork. God gave certain people the unmistakable curiosity it takes to drive lifelong searches for medical advances, life-changing inventions and, yes, the search for new species and potential life beyond what we currently know.
I grew up a science-centric kid. My favorite subject in school was biology by a large margin over anything else. I went to college and immediately jumped into senior-level virology, botany and anatomy/physiology classes in my freshman year. I took pride in learning all I could about God’s creation and everything scientific and mathematical surrounding it.
I remember feeling especially excited during one college course when I figured out a formula to determine the density of non-typical geometric objects a full month before we got into studying that portion of our advanced calculus curriculum.
I understand the excitement of scientific discovery. I understand the rush of finding something new. In fact, I was giddy earlier this year to find a dead star-nosed mole in our garden. It led to research on the strange little mammal as my family and I explored what was basically, to us at the moment, the unknown. Of course a dead mole may not compare with potential life on Mars, but the excitement of discovery was still there.
However, the irony lies in the obsession of certain scientists – and the general public, like my co-worker – to find and celebrate any glimmer of a chance of life on Mars or elsewhere in the cosmos. That passion for finding life is so extreme that just finding some salt water on another planet is reason for celebration.
Meanwhile, many of the same individuals support abortion.
They find it OK to argue when life officially begins in the womb. Is it at conception? Is it after the first trimester? Somewhere in between? When does that “blob of cells” become more important than a single-cell amoeba in space? When is that “blob” worth protecting and celebrating more than some salt water on a distant planet?
Why is it that we’re grasping at every straw in hopes of finding the simplest form of life elsewhere when certain people try to discount, second-guess and even destroy some of the earliest stages of life here on Earth?
Ultimately, I’m not trying to undermine the recent NASA discovery – just finding myself stuck on the irony of how inconsistent we are when it comes to discovering and fostering the simplest, most innocent forms of life – regardless of whether they are on Mars or in the womb.