I posed the following hypothetical to a local anti-choice zealot: 1) A teenager is raped by a man she detests. The following day she obtains a prescription, takes a pill, and aborts a two-day old embryo; 2) A legally sane man murders his wife. Both teen and husband act with premeditation. Should both suffer the same legal penalty? "Yes," he said. We did not get to whether the penalty should be life imprisonment or death by hanging.

Anti-choicers cheered a recent poll indicating slightly more Americans considered themselves "pro-life " than pro-choice. But another recent poll finds that 68 pct of Americans do not favor overturning Roe v. Wade. In fact, only some 20 pct. would outlaw all abortions. (pollingreport.com)

Absolutists commonly describe all fertilized ova, at whatever developmental stage, as "babies" or "citizens." In effect, they say whatever something may become, it already is; potential is actual. Thus, for them, an egg is immediately a chicken. An acorn is an oak.

At three days' development the human embryo commonly has 8 undifferentiated cells -- no organs, no nervous tissue, no brain. (Pacific Fertility Center). A human being has about 2 trillion cells. Imagine yourself reverse-engineered to fewer than, say, 100 undifferentiated cells. Where is the you of "you"?

For absolutists, abortion at that early stage may be religiously intolerable, but the cast-off embryo would surely experience no pain. Several states put the sentient (pain sensing) stage at 20 weeks. Mark Rosen, an obstetrical anesthesiologist at University of California, San Francisco, says fetuses haven't "formed the necessary nerve pathways" to actually feel pain until the 28th week or later, even though the fetus may display reflexes "mediated by the spinal cord." (Discover Magazine. Dec. 2005)

About 63 percent of induced abortions take place within in the first 9 weeks, and 89 percent occur within the first 12 weeks. Just over 1 percent are late term abortions (those past 20 weeks). Reasons and rationales are varied. (Guttmacher Institute)

In January 2003, John M. Opitz, Prof. of Pediatrics, Human Genetics, and Obstetrics/Gynecology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, testified to the President's Council on Bioethics. Some 20 percent of fertilized eggs are cast off almost immediately, Opitz said. Another 60 percent are spontaneously aborted within a week, typically without women realizing it. Of those, about 40 to 50 percent are healthy enough to have been born.

That raises serious theological questions. Did God abort them? Do all those spontaneously aborted embryos have souls? Just the healthy ones? Do they think thoughts? With what do they think?

It seems to me the most serious discussions should be about very late term abortions. Absolutists typically frame all abortions, but especially these as "murder" or "baby killing." But the choices are often dire. Here are just three actual examples.

A nine-year-old had been raped by her father. The pregnancy was not discovered until the 18th week. Kansas' abortion clinic physician Dr. George Tiller agreed that carrying the infant to term "might have ripped her small body apart" (as a New York Times reporter phrased it.)

An example from Opitz's testimony (accompanied by slides): "The only normal parts of this baby are the upper limbs. And you can see there is anencephaly; the entire face is cleft. You can see the right half and left half of the nose. There was rudiment of an eye on the left...no normal vertebrae at all... renal abnormalities, diaphragmatic abnormalities and so on. Nevertheless, this baby survived to 23 weeks."

Another example from Opitz: "It was half a baby. It was the right half... which in order to survive up until 23 weeks and a weight of 500 grams, formed into a donut-like shape.... Now the question, is there half a soul or a whole soul?"

Here are some of the diagnoses and circumstances often discovered late in pregnancy. Trisomy, types 13, 18, & 21. Polycystic Kidney Disease. Spina Bifida. Hydrocephalus. Potter’s Syndrome. Lethal Dwarfism. Holoprosencephaly. Anterior and Posterior Encephalocele. Non-immune Hydrops. If you know all about these, if you understand all that might be required of those intimately involved, and if you are arrogant enough, you can advocate making all abortions illegal.

Most of us, however, are reluctant to impose our prejudices on women in circumstances of which we are largely ignorant. Neither do we wish the government or religious zealots to impose theirs. We are willing to let women, with the support of their spiritual and medical advisers, choose -- as agonizing and morally gray as that choice might be.