philosophical, scientific, and medical opinion. It's been argued for centuries. Fortunately, our society has recognized that each woman must be able to make this decision, based on her own conscience. To impose a law defining a fetus as a "person," granting it rights equal to or superior to a woman's - a thinking, feeling, conscious human being - is arrogant and absurd. It only serves to diminish women. What they ignore is that allowing an embryo to use a woman's body against her will would give it more rights than she has, since women (including pregnant ones) are not entitled to demand the use of other people's bodies to save their own lives. In fact, children cannot gain access to the bodily resources of their parents, even when their lives are at stake. Abortion opponents also ignore thousands of years of cultural, religious, social, and legal history which has never held an embryo to be a person. Only abortion opponents have ever defined embryos as persons-and then only for the purpose of opposing abortion, as they are quite willing to regard embryos as non-persons when it suits them. (For instance, by allowing abortion in circumstances that would never justify killing an innocent person.) Calling for laws that define an embryo as "a person," with rights equal to or greater than those of women, is arrogant and ...
