How far do women's rights go?

While perusing the articles on abortion printed in the Salient of 17.4.74 I was struck by what appeared to be an inconsistency in the basic argument being proffered in those articles.

It seemed to me that the basic argument being propounded (at least in the National Abortion Action Committee's submission) was. that because a woman has an inherent right to control her own body she must, therefore, have a right to abortion on demand. With respect, I must disagree. I do not think that a woman's right to control her own body necessarily gives rise to a right on her part to terminate, or cause the termination of, another human life.

Both the Committee's submission and Dr Sparrow's article seemed to accept that human life is a continuum with conception merely a stage along the way. It was then suggested that abortion was not murder because we did not become human "beings" until birth. It seems to me that the point being overlooked is that a woman's right to control her own body extends only so far as it relates to her life and it cannot be used to exercise control over another, separate life. The question basically, then is when does human life begin?

While it is true that an ovum is alive and that a sperm is a living, moving cell, neither can, as such, be classed as constituting a human life. However, medically speaking as Dr Sparrow points out "when the two nuclei of the ovum and sperm fuse we have a single-celled zygote with the full complement of 46 chromosomes and a sexual identity, genetically male or female". Can we not say that it is at this stage that human life begins? It is at this point that the possibility that sperm and ovum might meet has become a reality — all the basic components of life exist in a single entity (with its own sexual identity) which, if it is lucky, will survive the various stages of its growth: division into a multiplication of cells. Implantation, embryonic growth, birth, childhood, puberty, adulthood, old ace; and eventually die.

It seems to me that from the point of fertilisation we have a human life which, while it has only the potential to become a human "being", has just as much right to life as the mother.

This being so, any right which a woman has "to decide for herself when and if she will bear children" must be exercised before fertilisation takes place because after fertilisation we have a separate life which, while it is dependent on the mother for its nourishment and protection, has its own exclusive human identity. While it depends on the mother for its continued existence, as a life it is in no way subordinate to her.

I do not intend here to argue the moral rights and/or wrongs of contraception, nor indeed shall I discuss any other of the various arguments for or against abortion. I merely wish to point out that I do not see that a woman's right to control her body gives her a right to abortion on demand. This opinion is in no way rigid and unbending but is of course open to alteration and review subject to persuasive and logical argument causing same.

P.W. Hocquard