* Associate Professor, Southwestern University School of Law, Los Angeles, California. I thank Archie Zariski for his encouragement and Kelley Finan for her able research assistance.

[1] E LAW - MURDOCH UNIVERSITY ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF LAW VOL 6 NO. 1 (March, 1999) (hereinafter, Hope).

[2] 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

[3] Gestational age is commonly calculated from the onset of the mother's last menses before conception.

[4] Hope ¶ 73.

[5] Hope ¶ 1.

[6] But see Planned Parenthod of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 105 U.S. 833, 846 (1992) (holding that the state is concerned with potential life from the conception of that life, but that abortion is nevertheless a woman's private decision before viability).

[7] But see generally FEMINISM AND SCIENCE (Evelyn Fox Keller & Helen E. Longino, eds. 1996) (collecting essays exploring the gendered nature of scientific assumptions and methods).

[8] Hope's reliance on science to provide an answer to what is posed, in the United States, as a legal question-what is the nature and value of a woman's Constitutional right of reproductive choice?-implies yet another unstated premise: that neither the U.S. Constitution nor any other body of U.S. law is adequate to the task of providing a well-reasoned answer to this question. Cf. Hope ¶¶ 97-106 (criticizing the opinion for the Court in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), for relying "almost exclusively on the law"). On this point I rather agree with Hope. See Katherine C. Sheehan, Toward a Jurisprudence of Doubt, 7 UCLA WOMEN'S L. J.201, 241-55 (1997). However, I would neither pose the question in the way Hope does nor look to science for an answer.

[9] See, e.g., Hope ¶ 2 & nn. 3-5. Hope's own sources, however, do not agree on the use of the word "fetus." Compare Hope n. 6 (dating beginning of fetal stage at the end of week eight) with Hope n. 9 (noting that it is traditional to change the term from embryo to fetus at the end of the first trimester, or week twelve).

[10] Hope ¶ 52.

[11] Id.

[12] Hope ¶ 10.

[13] See Hope ¶¶ 5-8.

[14] See Hope ¶ 10.

[15] Hope ¶ 9.

[16] See Hope ¶ 9.

[17] Hope ¶¶ 30 & 34.

[18] Hope ¶ 36. Hope makes a similar claim when he states that our culturally created evaluation of life is not arbitrary because "the law places a higher value on life as one progresses up the evolutionary scale," Hope ¶ 24, a statement reminiscent, in this context, of the old axiom that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

[19] Hope ¶ 36.

[20] Hope tends to treat human culture as a fairly monolithic entity resembling the world of Jules Verne's science fiction, leavened with a little art. See, e.g., Hope ¶¶ 49-53. "We live in a scientific civilization and science is the basis of our survival and flowering as a species." Id. ¶ 53. He does not comment on whether life outside the sphere of western science commands the same value as life within it.

[21] See Hope ¶¶ 24-26.

[22] Hope ¶ 20; see also Hope ¶¶ 2, 10, 20, 21, 23, 100 ("biological facts"); 9, 89, 97, 128 ("scientific facts"); 2, 35, 103 ("facts of ontogeny" or "development").

[23] For a careful analysis of the notion of "fact" and its relationship to the concept of "evidence" in science, see Helen E. Longino & Ruth Doell, Body, Bias, and Behaviour: A Comparative Analysis of Reasoning in Two Areas of Biological Science, in FEMINISM AND SCIENCE 73, 75-77 (Evelyn Fox Keller & Helen E. Longino, eds. 1996).

[24] Id.

[25] See id. at 75 ("To speak of scientific evidence is not to speak of bare facts or data awaiting an explanation. It is, instead, to confer on those facts an epistemic relevance to a belief, hypothesis, or theory.")

[26] For example, Hope argues that the fact that "fetal movement stirs factors of intuitive recognition and empathy on the part of observers," Hope ¶ 67, is a reason to allow abortion to be prohibited when fetal movement occurs. The observation he has in mind, however, is not the mother's recognition of her unborn child's activity, or "quickening," but the transition from embryo to fetus, when movement "actually" begins, although it can be detected only sonographically. See id. Many mothers will recognize this distinction as that separating "old wives' tales" about pregnancy from much of obstetrics.

[27] See Hope ¶ 10.

[28] See Hope ¶ 59.

[29] Hope ¶ 127.

[30] See Hope ¶¶ 59-61.

[31] See Hope ¶ 127 (likening data gathered by "new imaging technologies" such as fetal sonograms to views of Earth obtained from space). Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, in her perceptive analysis of fetal imagery, quotes a telling example of this view: "'The fetus could not be taken seriously as long as he sic remained a medical recluse in an opaque womb; and it was not until the last half of this century that the prying eye of the ultrasonogram . . . rendered the once opaque womb transparent . . . letting the light of scientific observation fall on the shy and secretive fetus.'" Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction, 13 FEMINIST STUDIES 263, 276 (1987), (hereinafter, Fetal Images) quoting Michael R. Harrison, et al., Management of the Fetus with a Correctable Congenital Defect, 246 J. AM. MED. ASSOC. 774 (1981) (italics Petchesky's).

[32] Hope ¶ 73 (emphasis added).

[33] See, e.g., Hope ¶ 89 ("To a large extent the notion that humanness begins at conception relies on articles of faith rather than scientific fact.")

[34] See Hope ¶ 84 (The "human recognition factor" does not matter to the abortion of embryos because, "quite simply, embryos do not have distinctively human features").

[35] See, e.g., Hope ¶¶ 67, 81, 84.

[36] Hope ¶ 24.

[37] Id.

[38] Hope ¶¶ 38-39. See Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (MGM 1968). Hope's evident fondness for 2001 is very telling. The movie portrays an unbelievably laborious and expensive scientific process evidently intended to result in the birth of a superior baby, who appears in the movie as the fetal "star child," floating through space in its placental space ship, free of unscientific maternal connections. For an extended analysis of the mysogynistic implications of this image see Fetal Images at 270. All major and minor speaking parts in 2001 are played by men, although the movie does include several female flight attendants, a female receptionist, two wives, a daughter, a mother, and a machine with a feminine voice.

[39] See BONNIE STEINBOCK, LIFE BEFORE BIRTH 40-71 (1992) (examining flaws in moral reasoning concerning potential people).

[40] See, e.g., Hope ¶ 81.

[41] See, e.g., Hope ¶ 67 ("Fetal movement stirs factors of intuitive recognition and empathy on the part of observers."); ¶¶ 77-78 (unlike viability, which is "difficult to judge," "the change from embryo to fetus is by definition accompanied by a change in external form.").

[42] See Fetal Images at 263-71.

[43] See id.; see also BARBARA JOHNSON, Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion 184, 199 in A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE (1987) (remarking that the debate about abortion lacks coherence, in part, because of "the difficulty . . . in the attempt to achieve a full elaboration of any discursive position other than that of the child.")

[44] Or a transistor radio. See Jed Rubenfeld, On the Legal Status of the Proposition That "Life Begins At Conception", 43 STAN. L. REV. 599, 624 n. 110 (1991) ("One might as well say a transistor radio was an independent life entitled to respect as a person.").

[45] See Hope ¶ 81 ("Those who recognize in the viable fetus the features of a complex human being intuitively feel strong empathy . . . which creates for many reasonable people a conflict between their conscience and the Constitutional abortion right"); see also id. ¶ 67 ("Fetal movement stirs factors of intuitive recognition and empathy on the part of observers.").

[46] Hope ¶ 78.

[47] Fetal Images at 264.

[48] For a careful and damning study of the importance of degrading images of poor single motherhood to the regulation of labor in the United States, see FRANCES FOX PIVEN & RICHARD A. CLOWARD, REGULATING THE POOR: THE FUNCTIONS OF PUBLIC WELFARE 365-99 (Updated ed. 1993).

[49] See BONNIE STEINBOCK, LIFE BEFORE BIRTH 59-71 (1992) (examining the logical problems with attributing interests or a point of view to aborted pre-viable fetuses).

[50] See, e.g., Hope ¶ 16 (referring to late-term abortion as "gruesome" and describing it as "live dismemberment."); id. ¶ 69 (referring again to "gruesome live dismemberment").

[51] See Hope n. 17 (describing the procedures for late-term abortions, including the need to make certain fetal parts, including the skull, "smaller"); id. n. 18 (describing the "calvaria sign" which indicates to the doctor when the fetal skull has been successfully compressed); id.¶ 90 (challenging pro-choice advocates to "come up with a rationalization for 'calvaria sign'"). Hope's obsession with the crushing of skulls is oddly echoed in his admiring description of the scene from the movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (MGM 1968) in which the proto-human hero uses his new-found skill with tools to brain his hominid rival. See Hope ¶ 38. In the movie, the proto-human's first use of the tool is to slay animals for food. Hope omits this scene from his description.

[52] "Like much of surgery, late abortion by any method is not aesthetic. However, these considerations must never influence the judgment of the physician as to what is best for the patient." Continuing Need.

[53] See id.; Janet E. Gans Epner, Harry S. Jonas, Daniel L. Seckinger, Late-term Abortion, 280 J. AM. MED. ASSOC. 724 (August 26, 1998), available in 1998 WL 15720388 (hereinafter, Late-term Abortion) (noting that some U.S. physicians prefer dilatation and extraction (D&E) over labor induction methods of late-term abortion because they find D&E "distasteful," but reporting that the American Medical Association recommends that the decision whether and when to use any particular abortion method must be left to the discretion of the individual physician acting in the best interest of the patient.).

[54] See Continuing Need (giving as a reason why the D&E method is chosen over labor-induction alternatives for second-trimester abortions to the fact that "negative reactions to second-trimester abortions are directly related to contact with the fetus," and D&E "transfers the emotional burden of abortion from women, who have often suffered greatly, to the staff").

[55] Hope ¶¶ 10-11.

[56] See Hope ¶¶ 59-66 & 74.

[57] Hope ¶ 74.

[58] For a discussion of the complexity of defining life and death see Robert M. Veatch, Definitions of Life and Death: Should There Be Consistency? in DEFINING HUMAN LIFE: MEDICAL, LEGAL, AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS 99-113 (Margery W. Shaw & A. Edward Doudera, eds. 1983). The definition of death as the cessation of brain activity, however defined, is by no means universally accepted. See, e.g., D. Alan Shewmon, "Brainstem Death," "Brain Death" and Death: A Critical Re-evaluation of the Purported Equivalence, 14 ISSUES L. & MED. 125, 143-45 (1998) (hereinafter, Brainstem Death) (arguing that "brain death" is a harmful legal fiction).

[59] See, Brainstem Death at 143-44. Dr. Shewmon lists as one of his reasons for opposing the concept of brain death the fact that it has spawned the even more objectionable and unscientific notion of "brain birth."

[60] See Brainstem Death at 126 (distinguishing brain-based diagnoses of death into two camps: the American "whole brain" formulation and the British "brainstem" formulation.) For an analysis of the points of disagreement among the various theories of brain death, see CHRISTOPHER A. PALLIS & D.H. HARLEY, ABC OF BRAINSTEM DEATH 6 (2d ed. 1996).

[61] Robert J. Sokol & Mortimer G. Rosen, The Fetal Electroencephalogram, 1 CLINICS OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY 123 (1974); Joel R. Cornwell, The Concept of Brain Life: Shifting the Abortion Standard Without Imposing Religious Values, 25 DUQUESNE L. REV. 471, 476 (1987).

[62] See Cherry Thompson, Cortical Activity in Behavioural Development, in BRAIN AND BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENT 131, 136 (J. Dickerson & H. McGurk, eds. 1982) ("The electrical is random, irregular, unresponsive and dissociated" in the fetal cerebral cortex until at least the twenty-second week of gestation); JOHN R. HUGHES, EEG IN CLINICAL PRACTICE 69-70 (1982); Gary B. Gertler, Note: Brain Birth: A Proposal for Defining When a Fetus Is Entitled to Human Life Status, 59 S. CAL. L. REV. 1061, 1068 (1986).

[63] See D. Gareth Jones, Brain Birth and Personal Identity, 15 J. MED. ETHICS 173, 177 (1989).

[64] See Hope ¶ 69 ("There is a strong moral argument that the right of abortion must be tempered by considerations of the humanity of the fetus and the possibility that the fetus is capable of sensation.")

[65] BONNIE STEINBOCK, LIFE BEFORE BIRTH: THE MORAL AND LEGAL STATUS OF EMBRYOS AND FETUSES 85 (1992).

[66] See Hope ¶ 68.

[67] See, e.g., ROBERT D. GOLDSTEIN, MOTHER-LOVE AND ABORTION 38-52 (1988) (describing psychoanalytic object relations theories of the origin of the self in relationships with others).

[68] See Joel R. Cornwell, The Concept of Brain Life: Shifting the Abortion Standard Without Imposing Religious Values, 25 DUQUESNE L. REV. 471 (1987).

[69] See Gary B. Gertler, Note: Brain Birth: A Proposal for Defining When a Fetus Is Entitled to Human Life Status, 59 S. CAL. L. REV. 1061 (1986).

[70] See Hope ¶¶ 61-62 and n. 31-32 (citing John M. Goldenring, The Brain-Life Theory: Towards a Consistent Biological Definition of Humanness, 11 J. MED. ETHICS 198, 200 (1985); id. ¶ 64 and n. 33 (citing Cornwell). Goldenring and Cornwell both argue that "brain life" begins after eight weeks of gestation. See, also Joseph W. Dellapenna, Nor Piety Nor Wit: The Supreme Court on Abortion, 6 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 379-408 (1974-75) (eight weeks); BARUCH BRODY, ABORTION AND THE SANCTITY OF LIFE 83 (1975) (same); Peter Steinfels, Scholar Proposes Brain Birth Law, N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 8, 1990) at A28 col. 1 (reporting philosopher Hans-Martin Sass's support for proposed Iowa legislation dating "brain birth" at ten weeks). Hope does not mention Gary Gertler, who argued for a "brain birth" standard but dated that event at twenty weeks. See, also, J. Korein, Ontogenesis of the Fetal Nervous System: The Onset of Brain Life, 22 TRANSPLANTATION PROC. 982, 983 (1990) (concluding that brain life begins no earlier than week twenty). Hope's conflation of various stages of brain development is particularly egregious when he attempts to claim Sarah Weddington, attorney for Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade, as an advocate for his restrictive position. See Hope ¶¶ 64-66. Hope quotes a line from Weddington's 1992 book in which she reports reading that she had responded to a question at oral argument in the district court in Roe by commenting that the state might "recognize life" when the fetal brain was functioning. Because he ignores the distinction between electrical activity at eight weeks and true brain function around week twenty-four (and between a state's interest in fetal life and its power to prohibit abortion), Hope implies that Weddington was arguing for a right ending at the eighth week. This is not and never was Weddington's position. In arguing before the Supreme Court, Weddington refused to adopt any endpoint for the right to choose abortion, despite her recognition that failure to do so might weaken her argument. See SARAH WEDDINGTON, A QUESTION OF CHOICE 117-18 (1992) ("I knew that everyone, me included, was uncomfortable with the idea of abortion in the later stages of pregnancy. . . .As the justice continued to push me, I felt I had to stick to my basic answer that legal rights generally began at birth, while recognizing that the emotional, rather than constitutional response to abortion was different for late pregnancy.")

[71] See, e.g., Andrezej Kulczycki, Malcolm Potts, Allan Rosenfield, Abortion and Fertility Regulation, 347 THE LANCET 1663-68 (June 15, 1996) available in LEXIS, Health Library, Alljnl file (hereinafter, Fertility Regulation).

[72] Stanley K. Henshaw and Kathryn Kost, Abortion Patients in 1994-95: Characteristics and Contraceptive Use, 28 FAM. PLAN. PERS. 140, 145 (July/August 1996) (hereinafter, Contraceptive Use). Henshaw and Kost define contraceptive failure as conception by a woman who "considered herself a contraceptive method user during the month she became pregnant, although she may not have used a method consistently or correctly." Id. at 144.

[73] See Fertility Regulation (citing sources reporting that 60% of U.S. pregnancies are unwanted or mistimed, while two-thirds of European women have at least one unintended pregnancy).

[74] See id.

[75] See id.

[76] See id.; Contraceptive Use at 142.

[77] See Contraceptive Use at 142.

[78] See id.

[79] See RACHEL BENSON GOLD, ABORTION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH: A TURNING POINT FOR AMERICA? 16 (1990).

[80] See N.F. Russo, J.D. Horn, R. Schwartz, US Abortion in Context: Selected Characteristics and Motivations of Women Seeking Abortions, 48 J. SOC. ISSUES 183-202 (1992).

[81] Contraceptive Use at 142.

[82] See Hope ¶ 91. According for the Centers for Disease Control, 48.8% of reported U.S. abortions occurred after 8 weeks of gestation in 1993; 47.4% in 1994. Lisa M. Koonin, et al., Abortion Surveillance-United States, 1993 and 1994, in 46 Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report 37, 62-65 (Centers for Disease Control, August 8, 1997) (hereinafter, Abortion Surveillance). For a careful discussion of the CDC's statistics, comparing them to those collected from abortion providers by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, see Late Term Abortion.

[83] See Hope ¶ 129 (pointing out that his solution "will give each side half a loaf").

[84] Hope ¶¶ 90, 93.

[85] Hope ¶ 92.

[86] In 1993, 65% of reported legal abortions performed for children under 15 occurred after the eighth week of gestation; in 1994 that number was 65.5%. Abortion Surveillance at 90-91.

[87] 56.8% of those performed for teenagers aged 15 through 19 in 1993 occurred after the eighth week. In 1994 56.6% of abortions for girls aged 15-19 were performed after the eighth week. Id. About 20% of all United States abortions are performed for teenaged girls. Id. at 54-57.

[88] Committee on Adolescence, American Academy of Pediatrics, The Adolescent's Right to Confidential Care When Considering Abortion, 97 PEDIATRICS 746-751 (1996) (hereinafter, Adolescent's Right).

[89] See David A. Grimes, The Continuing Need for Late Abortions, 280 J. AM. MED. ASSOC. 747 (August 26, 1998) available in 1998 WL 15720393 (hereinafter, "Continuing Need").

[90] See id.

[91] See B. Santee & S.K. Henshaw, The Abortion Debate, 24 FAM. PLAN. PERS. 172-73 (1992); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 744 F. Supp. 1323, 1356-57 (E.D. Pa. 1990) (making extensive findings of fact concerning minors' reactions to pregnancy), aff'd in part and rev'd in part, 947 F.2d 682 (3d Cir. 1991), aff'd in part and rev'd in part 505 U.S. 833 1992).

[92] Most teenagers voluntarily involve adults in considering what to do about their unwanted pregnancies. See Adolescent's Right; Casey, 744 F. Supp. at 1356. Foot-dragging abortion control statutes impose additional burdens on minors and their consenting parents, including, for example, requirements that parents receive counseling in person from abortion providers, resulting in abortions being delayed until both the child and her parent can arrange time to visit the provider. See id. These delaying tactics, as well as others requiring that counseling be performed by physicians, dictating the information to be provided to persons seeking abortion, limiting the places where abortions can be performed, and imposing onerous record-keeping and reporting requirements on providers, all of which decrease the availability and increase the time and expense associated with abortion, have all been upheld as Constitutional by the United States Supreme Court. See Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 105 U.S. 833 (1992). These statutes have been opposed by pediatricians as harmful to the health of young women and girls. See Adolescent' Right.

[93] See Continuing Need (Remarking that reasons for late-term abortions include young age, ignorance, fear, and ambivalence, factors that "are not easily changed.") Improved education in contraception and reproduction might address some of the conditions that cause teenaged girls to need abortions after the eighth week of pregnancy. These measures are seldom favored by persons seeking to restrict access to abortion, however, and Hope does not mention any effort to improve access to either contraception or early abortion as part of his scientific resolution of the abortion controversy.

[94] See Late-term Abortion (discussing results of 1987 survey conducted by Alan Guttmacher Institute).

[95] In 1993, 54.2% of black women who obtained reported abortions got them after the 8th week of pregnancy, compared to 44.5% of white women. In 1994, the number was 52.6% for black women compared to 43.3% for white women. See Abortion Surveillance at 90-91. Although the majority of abortions in the United States are performed for white women, the abortion rate for African-American women is nearly triple that of whites. See Abortion Surveillance at 43; Contraceptive Use at 143.

[96] See Continuing Need. Even the results of chorionic villus sampling (CVS), which Hope points to as a method of early testing, are not available before his 8-week deadline. See Late-term Abortions (reporting that CVS can be performed between the 10th and 12th weeks of pregnancy, with results available in 2 to 10 days, and concluding that "an induced abortion prompted by the discovery of fetal anomalies through CVS or amniocentesis is almost certain to occur after the first trimester.").

[97] Hope ¶ 94 (emphasis added).

[98] Hope ¶ 95.

[99] See Continuing Need (remarking that, for this reason, "the availability of late abortion is pronatalist.").

[100] See RACHEL BENSON GOLD, ABORTION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH: A TURNING POINT FOR AMERICA? 5 (1990).

[101] "Almost a third of metropolitan areas have no abortion provider, and a similar proportion of women live in unserved counties. Two states-North and South Dakota-have only one provider each." Stanley K. Henshaw, Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 1995-1996, 30 FAM. PLAN. PERS. 263, 270 (December 1998).

[102] Today only a tiny percentage of women and girls denied abortions give their babies up for adoption; it is hard to know whether more would do so under Hope's rule but both the current adoption figures and the pre-Roe numbers suggest that most involuntary mothers will keep their babies. For example, although the abortion rate for teenaged girls has declined over the past decade, see Rachel B. Kaufmann, Alison M. Spitz, Lilo T. Strauss, Leo Morris, John S. Santelli, Lisa M. Koonin and James S. Marks, The Decline in U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rates, 1990-1995, 102 PEDIATRICS 1141 (1998), so has the rate at which teenagers give their babies up for adoption. See Adolescent's Right.

[103] "Compared with peers who terminate their pregnancies, adolescents who hear children are at a significantly higher risk of educational deficits, economic disadvantage, and marital instability." Adolescent's Right, citing American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Adolescence, Counseling the Adolescent About Pregnancy Options, 83 PEDIATRICS 135-137 (1989); Conner K. Greenberger, Parental Notice and Consent for Abortion: Out of Step With Family Law Principles and Policies, 23 FAM. PLANN. PERSPECT. 31-35 (1991).

[104] See Hope ¶¶ 27-35.

[105] See Hope ¶ 32.

[106] See Hope ¶ 105.

[107] See Jed Rubenfeld, On the Legal Status of the Proposition That "Life Begins At Conception", 43 STAN. L. REV. 599, 634-35 (1991).

[108] See BONNIE STEINBOCK, LIFE BEFORE BIRTH: THE MORAL AND LEGAL STATUS OF EMBRYOS AND FETUSES (1992).

[109] See ROBERT D. GOLDSTEIN, MOTHER-LOVE AND ABORTION (1988).

[110] See Stanley K. Henshaw, Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 1995-1996, 30 FAM. PLAN. PERS. 263 (December 1998).

[111] See Abortion Surveillance at 90-91.

[112] See Late-term Abortion.

[113] See Continuing Need.

[114] For an account of the damage done to women by the imposition of alien meanings on their bodies, see, DRUCILLA CORNELL, THE IMAGINARY DOMAIN: ABORTION, PORNOGRAPHY & SEXUAL HARASSMENT (1995). One of the pernicious effects of this imposition of meaning is that the dominant meaning of abortion as a victory of the woman in an adversarial battle with her fetus denies the woman any way to grieve for her loss. Cf. Lynn Wardle, "Crying Stones": A Comparison of Abortion in Japan and the United States, 14 N.Y. L. SCH. J. INT'L & COMP. L. 183, 185 (1993) (comparing the role of sadness in the meaning of abortion in two cultures).

[115] See ROBERT D. GOLDSTEIN, MOTHER-LOVE AND ABORTION (1988) (proposing that a woman's assent to motherhood creates a mother-child dyadic unit for which she remains responsible through pregnancy and much of childhood.)