I believe that Life begins at conception. I don’t know how you could possible argue that life begins at implantation, because from the point of view of the embryo, there is no distinction related to implantation. Implantation is like moving into a house; you are alive whether you have a roof over your head, or food on your plate.
This is important because it determines how you would treat embryonic stem cell research. If you don’t believe life begins until implantation, you can do what you want with an embryo. In fact, you could find a way to grow it outside the womb, and create non-living humans would could be your slaves or be divvied up for parts, according to that definition.
Now, on the matter of abortion, I have a view similar to Gingrich. I believe the embryo is a human, but I don’t believe the woman has an absolute responsibility to “raise” the child until it is successfully implanted. If the woman’s body rejects implantation (for whatever reason), she is not a murderer, and the embryo does not have to be treated as a dead child for purposes of burial or reporting.
Once the woman allows the baby to implant, it’s like she invited a homeless person into the house. If that person is starving, once you have taken responsibility for that person, you can’t just throw them out on the street — you will be guilty of homicide. You don’t have a responsibility for taking care of people, but once you accept responsibility, you are liable until you can find other arrangements.
Actually, using implantation as a standard may avoid some serious problems in the future.
That is, many couples must, for a multitude of reasons, use in-vitro fertilization to conceive a child. Often because they cannot do so the “natural” way. But reproduction is not easy, even in the best of circumstances, so this type of fertilization has to be redundant, to compensate for its high failure rate.
Already the courts are facing bizarre situations where, for example, a divorced couple contend over the possession of fertilized eggs in cryogenic storage. Usually the wife wants them to conceive, and then to demand child support from her ex-husband who does not want to do so.
The courts right now see fertilized eggs as “things”, property, not living potential humans with rights. Divorce cases will not be better if a third attorney can declare himself a representative of their fertilized egg.
Look at the odds.
A healthy, fertile woman has only an average of a 20% chance of successful fertilization during a given fertility cycle. About 10% of women have unusually high difficulty in successful fertilization, which means trying for at least one year without success, as well as permanently infertile.
30-50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant.
25% of pregnancies miscarry before birth.
In the US there is a 6% infant mortality rate, not including abortion.
So there is a big difference between fertilization and implantation.