High Court should revisit 1973 ruling with eye on new technology and DNA evidence on life in womb.

Embryo Mix-up Shows Why Roe v. Wade Is Outdated

By Thomas F. Fee

The Oregonian, on March 31, published a news item headlined "Fertility mix-up causes anguish." According to this story, Dr. Lillian Nash, a fertility doctor in midtown Manhattan, inadvertently implanted embryos from a black couple, Deborah Perry-Rogers and Robert Rogers, along with the embryos from a white couple, Donna and Richard Fasano, into Donna Fasano's uterus.

Nash discovered the mix-up early in the pregnancy and told both the Rogerses and the Fasanos what had gone wrong. Donna Fasano underwent an amniocentesis, which determined that she was carrying two healthy babies, and a DNA test, which determined that only one of them was genetically hers.

Since both babies were perfectly healthy, Donna Fasano decided to carry them to term, and in December 1998 she gave birth to two boys - one white, one black.

The Fasanos and the Rogerses and their attorneys are working together in a spirit of love and goodwill to resolve the issue and, pending the results of a DNA test, will give the black child to his biological parents to raise.

All's well that ends well?

Not quite. The birth of these two boys seems to refute some of the favorite lies of the pro-abortionists and the Supreme Court's decision that there is no "personhood" prior to birth.

Lie No. 1: "Nobody knows when life begins."

Obviously, the life of the black baby began at fertilization, and he was alive before implantation in the womb of Donna Fasano. His white mother's womb gave him a place for nourishment and to develop until birth.

She neither gave nor took away anything from his body. All that he is now was all there at the moment of conception.

Lie No. 2: "It's her body."

The black baby obviously was not her body. The egg and sperm and fertilized embryo belonged to the Rogerses, and DNA proves that babies are separate and distinct persons and not a part of the mother's body.

Lie No. 3: The infamous Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973 stated that prior to birth there is no "personhood," and in the "penumbras" (shadows or gray areas) of the Constitution lay a woman's right to privacy and abortion.

Since the black baby is the same "person" today as he was prior to implantation in the womb, he must have been the same "person" at his conception as he is now. So why doesn't the Constitution protect his right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? The same fallacious argument of a "non-person" was used prior to the Civil War to deny blacks full citizenship.

This birth calls into question the legitimacy of the Roe v. Wade decision. The Supreme Court should be required to revisit it based on present-day technology, DNA evidence, and modern science's new findings of the life in the womb.

Life begins at conception. The Rogerses know it. The Fasanos know it. All parents know it. It's time for the Supreme Court to correct its error before another 36 million babies die in the womb.

Thomas F. Fee of Sunriver is a member of the board of directors of Oregon Right to Life.