onception, and the potential child becomes the actual child, even in the state of the fetus.
The controversy depends, then, upon definitions. Archbishop O'Connor, in his argument, continually calls abortion murder of innocent human beings, or innocent children. Yet clearly, these are not children until they emerge from the womb, and until several months into the process, the fetus is not viable. Even with intense technological support, many premature infants either die or suffer from extreme handicaps and numerous surgical procedures for much of their lives.
Those who believe that abortion is not immoral define human being, and child, quite differently from Archbishop O'Connor. For example, Mary Gordon argued that the embryo changes status during the pregnancy, but does not exist as a child from the moment of conception. Instead, it gradually becomes a child during the process of gestation, and there are reasons to allow the mother to choose to abort the fetus during early stages of the pregnancy.
As Kristin Luker (1984) noted, this is fundamentally a debate about personhood, rather than about facts. The facts of the situation are not generally at issue. Instead, the definitions are at issue and the rights which are attributed to either the mother or the fetus. If the embryo is defined as a child, or baby, then there is general agreement that this entity should have rights equivalent to those of an adult human being (or certainly the right to life). If the embryo is defined as a fetus for much of the gestation period, however, then it does not possess the same kind of rights. The ethics of the situation, then, depends upon the definitions.
The political aspects of the abortion controversy are often more hidden, but just as heated. In general, the opposition to abortion is led by conservatives, and often by those who oppose feminism, while the strongest support of abortion occurs among liberals, and those who ten...