Marco Rubio's Abortion Logic Involves ... Donkeys?

Just when everyone thought that Donald Trump would be the 2016 GOP presidential hopeful to give the most ridiculous comment, Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida stepped up his game after the GOP debate on Fox News. During the debate, Rubio said he would support almost any restriction on abortion, but that he would still allow exceptions for abortion and rape. Afterwards, CNN's Chris Cuomo told Rubio that his stance puts him at odds with the majority of female voters and with science, because the general consensus is that life doesn't begin at conception. In response, Rubio's pulled out an argument which involved donkeys and animals, making for one of the strangest abortion statements of the 2016 presidential race.

Cuomo called Rubio out when he claimed that science states that human life begins at conception. Then Rubio got really riled up: "Let me interrupt you. Science has — absolutely, it has. Science has decided ... Science has concluded that — absolutely it has. What else can it be?" But then Rubio pulled out the big guns, and his logic got kind of crazy and hard to follow, but I'll do my best to help you out:

It cannot turn into an animal. It can’t turn into a donkey. The only thing that that can become is a human being.

Yes, sure. But science is not saying the cells have the capacity to turn into an animal. Science has shown that the cluster of cells are just that — cells. And yes, they're living, because almost everything is living (like those weird little microscopic bugs on your eyelashes. Sorry). But the cells are similar to ones you might find in an animal or a plant, which is what Cuomo pointed out when he then told Rubio that he was "oversimplifying it a little bit." According to science, Cuomo says, those cells are not a person, and the question of when a fertilized egg or fetus becomes a person is a matter of "faith. That’s not science."

But Rubio doesn't feel defeated. Actually, he feels empowered by this weird thing Cuomo is calling "science." Sporting a wide grin, he responds:

Well, if they can’t say it will be human life, what does it become, then? Could it become a cat?

This is where things get confusing. First, Rubio is admitting that the egg, cluster of cells, whatever, only has the capacity to become something. It isn't actually the living state that you would call a baby yet. Instead, he even says it has to "become" a baby. (Gotcha!) Second, what exactly is he saying here? That if it were a cat, it would be OK to abort? Or a mysterious donkey fetus found inside a woman — is that fair game?

DO WOMEN EVEN KNOW WHAT THEIR FERTILIZED EGGS COULD BECOME?! Does science even know?! OMG, guys, our fertilized eggs become babies at some point — not donkeys! Thank God Rubio cleared that up, 'cause personally, I had no idea. I was really hoping my cells had the capacity to become a baby and the capacity to become a cat.

But seriously, Rubio's life-from-conception argument, and the idea that we have to protect cells that have even the capacity to become a living person, is dangerous. By this logic, men shouldn't masturbate. Each of their little swimmers has the capacity to fertilize an egg and create a life. So don't waste them, you evil, evil, sexually-excited man! All of Rubio's logic is either really confusing and weird (or clarifying, because you know, I was unaware that I can't give birth to a cat) or really detrimental to potential policy.