Does Life Begin at Conception?

That was one of the questions asked at the "compassion forum" last night, and I wasn't too impressed with the answers from Hillary and Barack. I don't know why they can't give an accurate answer, something like:

Of course not! Conception is the union of two human cells that are already alive, descended in an unbroken line of living cells for billions of years.

The question you weren't bright enough to ask, is this: At what point does that merged cellular material deserve to be treated as a living "person" with individual rights. When it is a blastosphere, more or less hard to distinguish from a worm or a fish of the same stage of development? When it has a heart and a nervous system? When it looks human with a heart and a brain? Or when it escapes the womb.

The most sensible thing is conclude that there is no single moment when the developing human is suddenly touched with the magic potion, and the transformation of a fertilized egg into a human is not all or nothing but gradual. That implies that all abortions are not equal - a first trimester abortion is much different from a late third trimester abortion.

This position offends the extremists of both sides of the abortion debate, and that alone is enough to make us suspect that it is the right position.

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