072378 Abortion advocate Professor Garrett Hardin, said "...it is a scientific fact that the life of a human being begins at fertilization.

To the Editor:

A full-page ad that appeared recently in several of the prestigious newspapers of the nation for the purpose of soliciting funds to keep abortion legal contains many ambiguities, inaccuracies, and conceals many essential facts.

This is one of the erroneous statements: "That the fertilized egg and fetus are complete human beings is a religious belief not shared by most religions." [italics in original]

Professor Garrett Hardin, one of the early staunch and vocal advocates of abortion wrote to this effect-All biologists know (and I assume that all M.D.s know) that it is a scientific fact that the life of a human being begins at fertilization. He justifies the killing of the preborn by using a line of reasoning similar to the one that an official in an animal shelter uses in deciding whether or not to continue feeding and housing a particular cat or dog. If space is at a premium, of if funds are in short supply, or if the animal is sickly, put it to sleep, a euphemism for, "kill it." In stating that a zygote and fetus are human beings, then, right-to-lifers are acting in conformity with the judgment of biologists and are not going "[C]ounter to the separation of church and state guaranteed by the Constitution." By intimating that the humanity of the preborn is a religious belief, those who prepared the ad are attempting to bolster their sagging position by stirring the embers of bigotry.

A notation in the 1963 literature of another pro-abortion group supports the stand that the life of a human being begins at fertilization: A contraceptive prevents a life from coming into being an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.