Contemporary medical science describes the continuum of gestation in complete detail and those who accept this eminently valid knowledge will be familiar with the words “zygote,” “embryo” and “fetus.” Antiabortion sentiment and commentary tend to avoid any reference to the first term and recognize the second and third but grudgingly. That is because awareness of the speck, blob or tadpole-like status of the earliest stages does not lend itself to shrill claims that termination represents “murder” of a “baby” or “child.”
Extremists in the Texas Legislature have embraced and emphasized the information that a fetus arguably develops sensation of pain by 20 weeks. Accordingly, they should be denied the convenience of discounting the reality that from 2 to about 12 weeks the tiny entity does not have a differentiated nervous system and so is absolutely without awareness or personality. This seriously undermines any rational argument that it is a person with rights.
The opinion that personhood and a right to life begin at conception is a religious one, so in a society of constitutional liberty it is not permissible to force such a view on the public through laws. I don’t see what is so hard to understand about this.
SGTex
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