I read [Dan Josephson's] column (Abortion protects the victimized minority""), and though I disagree with his stance on abortion, I can admit a reasonable argument is made. It struck me, though, that you said ""being a pro-choice advocate has never been a question for me."" I still have trouble accepting either side of the debate so easily, and I hope to provoke that sort of questioning in others.
I would like to agree that all women have a right to make decisions regarding their own bodies. I would also, however, like to think that all humans have a right to life, which would usually supersede a woman's health decisions if they conflicted. The argument that a fetus is a human is dismissed by many because religious figures often simply assert it as doctrine, and if someone doesn't ascribe to their doctrine, it is hardly convincing. I'll try to present a more secular argument.
Most of us like to think that we are basically the same person we were yesterday. We also usually think that we are fundamentally the same person we were 10 years ago. Our bodies change and our opinions and preferences may change, but something about us makes us the same as we were, be it an immortal soul, an abstract mind or simply identical DNA. By this reasoning, I think we can agree that we all are, in a way, the same humans we were the moment after birth.
Is there anything that makes us different before birth? Even a month before birth, we can see many familiar body parts, and there is some sort of brain. It doesn't have much higher brain function, but that won't come until a few years after birth. Moreover, if we use DNA as our standard of identification, that DNA is in fact present in its full form at conception. Anywhere you care to draw a line, the difference between before and after that line is absurdly small; everywhere, that is, except at conception, where ova and sperm combine and form new DNA.
This shouldn't be the final word: not every situation is the same, and I can't ""prove"" that life begins at conception. But if you can't refute this (and I don't think you can without changing the rules), you might have to ask yourself a few questions.
-Brandon Biagioli
Madison, WI
