Though the anti-abortion movement welcomed scientific knowledge about conception to define human life which they claim begins at conception (a concept that was not well understood before science discovered the mechanism), they have not accounted for the inefficiency of early development and embryos that will not develop to term. Of pregnancies women are aware of, ~15% will spontaneously abort in the first trimester, with the estimate as high as 60% for all pregnancies (women are often unaware of earliest pregnancies). Embryogenesis is a complex, inefficient process.*
Such knowledge clearly impacts any definition of when human life
legally begins, but also has implications for anti-abortion laws in red states. Will they decide to make any evidence of an abortion, spontaneous or not a crime? Hopefully not, but given their biblically-oriented motivations it could happen, and the underlying science will be ignored. Perhaps it is only a matter of time when courts begin to rule that
life legally begins at conception (due to challenges to antiabortion laws) making women legally responsible for failed pregnancies, and the conservative Supreme Court gives its seal of approval, despite biological facts that suggest that this definition is unworkable.
---
Reference
*Larsen, E.C., Christiansen, O.B., Kolte, A.M. et al. New insights into mechanisms behind miscarriage. BMC Med 11, 154 (2013).
https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-11-154
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-11-154
"Human reproduction is characterized by its inefficiency. Prospective cohort studies using sensitive and specific daily urinary hCG assays in women trying to conceive have demonstrated that only around one-third of conceptions progress to a live birth [34–36]. An estimated 30% of human conceptions are lost prior to implantation and a further 30% following implantation but before the missed menstrual period, that is in the third or fourth week of gestation. These are often termed preclinical losses."