Considering the Fetus as Messenger.

The author characterizes the Pope's position on the sanctity of fetal life as less a moral proposition than an observation about the unborn child's function as an essential messenger, through the mother's pregnancy to the child's birth and to the child's role in defining the family. He considers the Pope's suggestion as a means of lowering the heat surrounding the abortion issue by distancing that dialogue from ingrained dogma. However, in proposing this point to a friend who is a firm pro-choice partisan, the author finds her skeptical of the Pope's frankness in thus framing the issue, and that she views the Pope's apparent concessions as merely tactical.