The verdict is in. Scott Peterson, a fertiliser salesman and part-time philanderer from California, killed his wife, who was eight months pregnant. He tied her body to an anchor made of concrete and dumped it in San Francisco Bay, covering his actions with a story about a fishing trip for which he didn't even have the proper equipment. Despite the twistings and turnings of attorney Mark Geragos (who first gained media attention with his defense of Susan McDougal during the Clinton Whitewater scandal), the jury convicted Peterson of murder.

Why is this significant? Murders happen every day. Peterson was convicted not of one crime, but two. He was convicted of murder in the first degree (premeditated) of his wife, Laci. He was also convicted of murder in the second degree (intentional) of his son, Conner. It turns out that this may be very significant, after all.

• Conner was not yet born.
• You can only murder a human being.
• Conner was murdered, therefore he was a human being.
• A human being has rights.
• Therefore, an unborn child is a human being with rights that should be protected.

I don't look at abortion from a religious standpoint. I've never seen a soul, and -- chances are -- neither have you. I have, however, seen the faces of the unborn as they smile, cry and play, thanks to the "miracle" of modern technology. The main Liberal argument seems to be that it's just a lump of "fetal tissue" right up until that magical moment when it breathes air and is transformed into a child. Not even the most fanatical Liberal will claim that it's not alive before that, just that it's not human life. Well, I was once a lump of tissue just like that. So were you. The DNA of an unborn child is fully human DNA. No one has yet documented any important changes that take place exactly at birth, except that suddenly the child's lungs are filled with air. And that's a pretty poor definition of humanity.

What defines us as human, if not our genetic code? At the moment of conception, a totally unique human genetic identity is created, one that has never existed before and will never exist again. There is no sudden, magical change detectable in the DNA between the moment of conception and the moment of birth. Therefore, a baby is a human life from the moment it's conceived until the moment it dies. And if it's human, it has to have some rights. One of those rights ought to be "not dying for someone else's convenience."

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, "49% of the 6.3 million pregnancies that occur each year are unplanned; 47% of these occur among the 7% of women at risk of unintended pregnancy who do not practice contraception." The three main reasons for choosing abortion are that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities (75%), the women cannot afford a child (66%) and they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner (50%). Overlapping reasons aside, three quarters of abortions are performed for reasons of convenience? The introduction of post-coital drugs like Preven (no longer manufactured) and Plan B caused a 43% drop in abortion rates between 1994 and 2000. I'd say that's a good start, and a lot more convenient. Plan B, which prevents fertilisation altogether, is unlike the French "morning after" pill RU-486, which prevents a fertilised egg -- a life -- from implantation. Besides, RU-486 seems to come with its own side effects, some of which involve death.

Of course, there is only one absolutely certain contraception method, but few words cause Liberals to roll their eyes and groan as much as "abstinence." God forbid -- to make a weak joke -- that people should have self-control. The idea that people should consider the implications before voluntarily having sex is generally met with scorn by Liberals and characterised as "medieval" by the media. It's easier to pretend that there are no consequences to one's actions.

Sometimes those consequences have faces and names, however. And sometimes they never get the chance to have them. We can hope that the conviction of Scott Peterson, along with the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Laci and Conner's Law, signed in April 2004), will go a long way towards ensuring some real protection for the youngest and most vulnerable members of the human race.