Abortion

is an unpleasant subject about which I do not like much to think, but it keeps being brought up to me, and, for what my thoughts on the subject are worth, I'd like to set them down: In the first place, I believe that life begins with conception  (which explains, I think, the bitter and poignant grief that women feel when they miscarry).  Secondly, whenever and however conception occurs (but, let us say, hopefully before the second trimester), women have absolute right, as over their own bodies, to abort, or to bear to term, the fruit of their womb. After the second trimester, the right of the nearly conscious foetus to exist probably ought to be held pre-eminent.  Adequate and complete care, nurture and education ought to be provided by the state to infants and children through the agency of  their parents and godparents, or, in default of these where these are not found, through agencies and institutions of the state.