UNRECOGNIZABLE REALITY (via Mike Daley):

Abortion test case goes to Europe: The case centres on the unborn baby's right to life (BBC, 12/10/03)

A woman whose pregnancy was wrongly terminated wants the European Court to accept a foetus' right to life.

The mix-up occurred in France, but campaigners fear the judgement could have implications for abortion rights across Europe.

French courts said the doctor could not be prosecuted for homicide as the foetus did not have the right to life.

But Mrs Thi-Nho Vo will argue that an "unborn child" has that right under the European Convention on Human Rights. [...]

Mrs Vo will argue that the foetus is protected by article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees a right to life.

Her lawyer, Bruno Le Griel, told the BBC's Today programme: "I will be asking the court to recognise reality, that is to say the human life, a human being, begins at the moment of conception.

"Who would dare tell my client to her face that what she was carrying, what she lost as a result of a mistake in the hospital, was nothing more than a cluster of cells and was not a human child - her child?"

You'd be surprised.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 10, 2003 08:34 PM