It takes guts to initiate an abortion conversation. I certainly can’t let it go without comment.

First off, I’ll admit that the headline would have been better if the condition of both victims – the mother and the baby – were noted.

My daughter starts med school next week. She took a gross anatomy class her last quarter of school just to see if she was okay with being around the inside of a human body, and whether she found the science of it interesting. She was and she did, and is now very excited to get started.

Last week, I took her to “Bodies … an Exhibition” a traveling educational exhibition showing quite a few partially dissected human bodies, and many organs. It was fascinating. I recommend it to anyone if it comes close to your town.

The exhibit was organized by major systems, and certainly one of those was the reproductive system. Part of the display were fetuses at various stages of development, starting at one week (they were said to have been obtained as a result of miscarriages or in-womb death).

The thing I didn’t know beforehand was the distinction between a zygote and a fetus. The zygote is the first stage, about eight weeks, when the DNA and T-cells are doing their thing and building all the components of the body. After that, it’s just growing them to maturity. You could see that in the displays — I think anyone would look at the 10 week fetus and recognize it as a human baby.

The question that we’ve always been struggling with is when exactly during development the fetus gains its own right to life. It’s sometime before birth, as there are certainly cases when a person has been charged with murder for killing a baby in-utero (e.g. by shooting the mother in the belly).

It’s probably not the instant of conception either, although that is the position taken by many, including the Catholic Church.

In the other blog, there was a comment that abortion has been a choice for birth control for eons. That’s probably true, but just because something is customary doesn’t make it moral. Some Muslim communities think female circumcision is a good idea, and it has been customary for a very long time. It horrifies most of us. Slavery was a custom for a long time, but few would think it moral today.

I have read about cultures that routinely drown newborn girls because girls are a burden on a family, while boys bring wealth. It is the sons and their families that take care of elders, while the daughters leave to join a new family (and take care of their elders). Drowning the newborn girls is an economic and survival decision, same as a pre-birth abortion. Is it equally moral?

Wise and moral people have been debating about abortion for quite a while now. I truly have no idea how to come to a definitive answer.

PL

Major kudos! Remember, while I still have so much to learn too, there was a time not long ago when I couldn’t tell you what an a href code was or even what an ftp was.