You never know what newsroom professionals will decide is a “holiday” story, of one kind or another.

For example, major publications have through the years run a wide variety of bizarre and even offensive stories that were, somehow, supposed to be linked to Easter. That season is problematic since it is so explicitly Christian, as in the faith’s most important holy day.

Christmas is a different matter, since the season is a cultural steamroller at the level of pop culture, big business and church-state warfare (a drag queens and you are on A1, for sure). Toss in the need for valid year-end features and lots of staff taking vacations and things can get pretty complex for editors.

All of that was an introduction to what I think was a totally valid Christmas-Yearender feature that ran at The New York Times with this big-issue headline: “When does life begin? The question at the heart of America’s abortion debate is the most elemental — and the most complicated.”

Talk about a complex, yet absolutely essential, topic to address after the fall of Roe v. Wade, and it’s absolutely essential that the editors assigned this one to the religion desk. That made sense because it’s impossible to draw a bright red line between the spiritual and legal issues in this debate. As if that isn’t enough, a reporter then has to deal with valid debates on this issue among scientists, and religious leaders (think popes) commenting on those debates.

Thus, this is a story that will draw few cheers from activists on either side of America’s abortion wars. That’s a compliment, with this kind of story. Here is a large chunk of its summary-thesis material:

When does life begin?

In the months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it has become unavoidable, as activists and politicians try to squeeze concrete answers from an eternal question of human existence.

Lawmakers and judges from Arizona to South Carolina have been reviewing exactly which week of development during pregnancy the procedure should be allowed. Some states draw the line at conception, or six weeks or 15 or around 40. Many others point to viability, the time when a fetus can survive outside the uterus. The implication is that after the determined time, the developing embryo or fetus is a human being with rights worth protecting.

Over the summer, when lawmakers in Indiana fought over passing a law banning most all abortions from conception, Republicans argued at length that a fertilized egg was a human life, at times citing their Christian principles — that “human life begins at conception” and “God our creator says you shall not murder.” A Democrat pointed to another answer found in Title 35-31.5-2-160 of the Indiana code: “‘Human being’ means an individual who has been born and is alive.” A disagreement over abortion policy became a fight over what it means to be human, the tension between conception and birth, church and state.

Like I said, that’s just the start.