That isn’t a red herring. If conception has taken place, that’s an abortion.
I’ve seen many of the opinions of quite a few pro-lifers that the “morning after†pill is an abortion and should be outlawed as well, even in cases of rape. I’ve also seen that extended to the “pillâ€, i.e. oral contraceptives because of the way the pill works – a conception can occur however the hormones in the pill will prevent implantation of the fertilized ovum, ergo, if one believes that life begins at the moment of conception, the oral contraception is no different that abortion.
This may not be a mainstream view and certainly not mine, but it is the opinion of the majority of those in the pro-life movement.
The other thing that is of concern is how to treat women with ectopic pregnancies or who are having a miscarriage. I recall the case in Ireland were a pregnant woman went to the ER because she was in pain and bleeding. In that case the woman and her husband wanted the baby but it was hopeless that the pregnancy could continue, that the baby would survive. But she was denied a DNC because a faint fetal heartbeat was detected and under the very restrictive abortion laws in Ireland at the time nothing was done and the woman ended up dying of sepsis.
The other elephant in the room is that RvW is overturned, or even just passed back to the states to legislate, is how miscarriages and not just miscarriages resulting from drug use, could be investigated as possible homicides. As absurd as that sounds, Georgia and Indiana under the governorship of Mike Pence, had such legislation that thankfully did not pass because the language was so vague and misworded that it was left up to prosecutorial digression.
Additionally, some states have passed anti-abortion legislation, while not outlawing or even restricting abortion, mandates that not only aborted fetuses but miscarried fetuses, regardless of term, must be cremated or buried as any deceased person would of course at the mother’s expense.
As to 2000 years ago:
An unborn fetus in Jewish law is not considered a person (Heb. nefesh, lit. “soulâ€) until it has been born. The fetus is regarded as a part of the mother’s body and not a separate being until it begins to egress from the womb during parturition (childbirth). In fact, until forty days after conception, the fertilized egg is considered as “mere fluid.â€
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-fetus-in-jewish-law/The Old Testament has several legal passages that refer to abortion, but they deal with it in terms of loss of property and not sanctity of life.
The status of the foetus as property in the Bible is shown by the law that if a person causes a miscarriage they must pay a fine to the husband of the woman, but if they also cause the woman to die then they are liable to be killed.
The New Testament doesn't explicitly deal with abortion.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/legal/history_1.shtmlAnd even in Western culture and common law up until the late 19th and early 20th century, a baby was not considered a separate human until the “quickening†which typically occurs around the 18th to 20th week. Causing a woman to miscarry or to abort was not a prosecutable offense until the quickening.
