But I suspect that we will see a new and profitable branch of contract law, and we will also see trafficking in embryos and fetuses. Raoul is right: motherhood as we know it will go away.

Feminist objections to limitations on abortion and birth control availability have hinged on the status of women as independent, equal, and inviolable human beings, whereas an embryo (and also a fetus, up to a certain point -- there are disagreements about the third trimester among feminists, too) does not share that status. If the woman is not being viewed as primarily a greenhouse for growing the young, that will remove one conflict. If, however, the option to conceive and bear young organically is usurped by insurance companies' concerns over the bottom line, a whole new theater of conflict will open up, one with such unlikely allies as feminist groups (speaking for the rights of women to exercise their biological prerogatives) and religious fundamentalists (speaking against interference with God's Plan). That will be very interesting to see.

We've seen it before, btw. Feminists and fundamentalists found common ground in the US at the turn of the 20th century on the issue of temperance/prohibition. Feminists saw alcohol abuse among men as a factor in the oppression of women, and fundamentalists saw it as a sin. We all know the wonderful result of this powerful coalition: the only amendment to the US Constitution that was ever repealed.

Regards--
Mary Anne