I'm not a lawyer, but it strikes me that the recent sperm theft trial has possible implications for the abortion issue.

Phillips alleges that he and Irons, who practices internal medicine, never had intercourse during their four-month affair, although they did have oral sex three times.

His suit contends that Irons, without his knowledge, kept some of his semen and used it to impregnate herself. ...

But the judges agreed with the lower court's decision to dismiss fraud and theft claims against Irons.

They agreed with Irons' lawyers that she didn't steal the sperm.

"She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift -- an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee," the decision said. "There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request."

Most pro-choicers say that the mother has a right to an abortion because the baby is inside her and entirely dependent on her, but perhaps the "irrevocable transfer" argument is valid here as well. I suppose the objection would be that egg and sperm don't change from being "property" to being a "person" until the spatial location of the result of their combination changes, so there's no "person" to be the recipient of the "irrevocable transfer"... but what about the father? Maybe a father could argue that when the mother had sex with him she irrevocably transferred her egg into their joint possession.

Or even her entire womb! After all, there's no "I" in uterus.

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