The abortion war

An activist who had a dead fetus in a jar at an anti-abortion rally is facing charges for keeping and exposing a dead body or body part.

Although the defense has not yet raised the issue in the trial, the charge underscores the contradictions in U.S. law over the legal standing of a fetus, says Brian Chavez-Ochoa, attorney for Jeff White, a lay minister from Lake Arrowhead, Calif.

White was arrested last spring while demonstrating outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in the nation's capital, the Washington Post reported.

When police officers asked White what he had in his pocket, he pulled out a jar with a 15- to 17-week-old female fetus, set in clear liquid.

Here's the part that I loved:

Chavez-Ochoa pointed out in an interview with the Post that abortion rights activists argue a fetus is merely a cluster of cells, not a human being.

"If that argument is correct," he said, "then how can somebody be charged by the District of Columbia with displaying a human being" when it was a fetus?

"It's a contradictory argument," Chavez-Ochoa said. "If it's not just a clump of cells, is the attorney general willing to concede that a ... fetus is in fact a human being?"