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I am staunch pro-life, but I understand that my position is based at least in part on religious belief.

There is a period from conception until some certain point, where being pro-life is based on faith, the belief that that fetus has a soul. But after that point being pro-life is simple human goodness.

I can understand why someone who does not believe in a soul would not have a problem with early abortion, but not later.

I don't know when that period when it changes from a religious belief to a matter of simple humanity. Is it when a heartbeat is detectable? Is it when the nervous system is functional? I don't know, but I think that is where the battle is fight-able. There really is no way that abortion will be made completely illegal, anyone who thinks it can is kidding themselves. But I think it is possible to seriously limit the number of abortions by banning it after a certain point.

Forget the religious notion of a soul, and focus on when the baby is genetically unique and complete. That moment is at conception. Conception is the moment of discontinuity and everything else proceeds from there.

Move backwards from birth and look for the moment at which you can say now there is a person who didn’t exist before and that moment is conception. For years after birth a pattern of growth will continue that is simply a continuation of what was happening before birth. In those month the baby has been growing larger, but expanding on structures that were there before. That heart is told to beat by a nervous system that has been developing from the same set of genetic instructions that directs the formation of the rest of the organs. Those organs grow out of cells that began dividing from a single cell. That single cell began dividing only after the sperm and ova were united. Before the moment they united the ova was just potential and the sperm was one of millions. At the moment they are united the cell is completely changed and the potential is fulfilled.