Congressman Eric Burlison introduces the 'Life at Conception Act'

[Retrograde]

23. A large percentage of fertilized ova never

make it all the way to birth. Aside from spontaneous miscarriages (will these women be charged with murder?), there are chimeras and other oddities where one embryo absorbs the other and ends up carrying both sets of DNA: can such a person be charged with pre-natal murder? Then there are identical twins and conjoined twins who form from one fertilized ovum: since the "soul" is formed at conception, does that make each one half a person? Or does one get the whole personhood, making the other a non-person?

I recently read Carl Zimmer's "She Has Her Mother's Laugh", a survey of current thought about genetics and heredity, and it's more complicated than one learns in high school - or used to learn: I often wonder if biology is still taught.