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The abortion issue is often posed in terms of "when life begins." Pro-lifers say "right to life" and "life begins at conception," as if those two phrases, taken together, wrap up the matter.

Scientists as a group respond to this somewhat grumpily. "Life on earth began several billion years ago," says one embryologist, "and has continued ever since. Life no longer begins from nonlife on the earth. It's handed down in unbroken chains, from one generation to the next." ¹³ Another states, "In the first place human life, as such, obviously begins before fertilization, since the egg or oocyte is alive before sperm entry, as were innumerable antecedent cells, back through the origin of species into the mists of time." ² Continues a third, "Nor does human life begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain dating back to the origin of our species, tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive. They are not human beings, of course. However, it could be argued that neither is a fertilized egg." ¹⁹

People speak offhandedly of "the moment of conception," yet embryologists now know that there is no such instant. Rather, "the process of fertilization ... extends over many hours. This precise fact has become an issue in another continuing controversy in Melbourne [Australia] with respect to the legitimacy of surgically introducing a sperm into a human egg as a possible alleviation of male infertility. The issue is whether the actual intervention occurs prior to conception and is, therefore, allowable." ¹²

There is no right to life in any society on Earth today. We raise farm animals for slaughter; destroy forests; pollute rivers and lakes until no fish can live there; kill deer and elk for sport, leopards for their pelts and whales for fertilizer; entrap dolphins, gasping and writhing, in great tuna nets; club seal pups to death; and render a species extinct every day. All these beasts and vegetables are as alive as we. What is (allegedly) protected is not life, but human life.

And even with that protection, casual murder is an urban commonplace, and we wage 'conventional' wars with tolls so terrible that we are, most of us, afraid to consider them very deeply. (Tellingly, state-organized mass murders are often justified by redefining our opponents — by race, nationality, religion or ideology — as less than human.) That protection, that right to life, eluded the 40,000 children under five who died on our planet today — as every day — from preventable starvation, dehydration, disease, and neglect. ¹²

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