Abortion

Life begins before conception. Sperm and ovum are each alive, and they go back in an unbroken line to some primeval ooze that created the first live cell. Each is a potential person. Nature is profligate with the deaths of individual sperms and ova. When a fetus becomes a person depends on how one defines "person." As far as I know when a potential becomes a human person has no scientific date and entirely depends on religious or political interpretation. The pertinent question is not when does life begin nor when does a fetus become a person but who has control over women's bodies. Imagine attempting to make a law controlling men's bodies and what they do with sperm they produce as the biblical prohibition against spilling seed upon the ground suggests. Or restricting the use of condoms or viagra. Or forced sterilization as has been practiced on women. Clearly, the unborn embryo or fetus is a part of the woman's body until it is born and takes its first breath. Gloria Steinem asks, “Should Women’s bodies be nationalized?” She argues that the political attempt to control women’s bodies and reproduction is historically patriarchal, racist, and sexist, and that the attempt is out of step with the majority opinion of the people.