To ridiculously equate masturbation with conception ("Biology doesn't solve abortion debate clearly," Jan. 26) ignores the union necessary for life, as human embryology teaches beyond a reasonable doubt that a
human being begins at conception (fertilization) when the sperm and the egg unite.

That new individual zygote (or, a human being, a person) is not his mother or his father, but a distinctly different human being with his own unique DNA. This is evidenced in many scientific studies and textbooks.

It is a fully documented, irrefutable fact.

In April 1981, a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held hearings on the question: When does human life begin? Appearing to speak on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell; namely, that human life begins at conception -- and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.

At the hearing, Dr. Hymie Gordon, department chairman of genetics at the Mayo Clinic testified: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."