Letter to the Editor: Zeitlin's take on personhood needs some refinement

Matthew Zeitlin would do well to be more careful with his terminology.  In his column, he conflates three different terms critical to the abortion debate — fetus, embryo and fertilized eggs.  His issue and column deal with the situation in Mississippi, specifically in the context of a fertilized egg.  Here, an egg has fused with a sperm and they want to declare that a person.  I agree with Zeitlin, this is a very extreme position to take.  However he uses fetus and fertilized egg interchangeably.  It is not until nine weeks later that a fertilized egg is called a fetus, calling a fetus a person would by no means result in birth control being called abortifacients.

These terms are important and as a columnist writing on the topic, Zeitlin should be expected to be familiar with them.  He does a great disservice to the debate by conflating them.  Not everyone who is pro-life thinks life starts at fertilization, though no one would think that after reading Zeitlin's column.  I consider myself pro-choice but think equating a 40 week old fetus not born yet with a fertilized egg is quite dishonest.  I would hope we would agree, legalizing abortion of a 40 week old fetus is wrong and just as extreme as criminalizing birth control.  Where that personhood line lies is a great and interesting debate for which I have my own beliefs.  But you have done nothing to help your cause or further the debate here.

Ryan Hurtado

Graduate student in molecular biosciences