It matters that human life begins at fertilisation because choosing any other point is arbitrary. Babies in the womb do not become more human when they implant in their mother’s womb, or when they grow from an embryo to a foetus or when their mother can feel them kicking or at any other developmental stage until birth.

It also matters because we cannot decide that a baby in the womb should be protected at one stage of his or her development and not at another. In the same way, we do not think that a two-year-old is more worthy of protection than, say, a fifty-two-year-old.