Why the media distortion?

I am puzzled as to why the media, and the NY TIMES in particular, constantly attributes the inclusion of embryos and fetuses in the demands of justice to some religious revelation. After all, the NY TIMES does not attribute a special religious view  to those who, say, strongly favor animal rights, even though it disagrees with them.

It seems to me clear that the inclusion of the unborn in humanity comes not from religion but from the ontological/psychological/deep cultural  conceptual impossibility of dividing a self-developing organism up into a new entity or species at a new stage of development. (The inclusion of animals among the subjects of rights, on the other hand, is NOT entailed by our ordinary concepts of reality and requires a great, though still non-religious, conceptual adjustment, I think.) Of course, religion can and does provide a strong motive force for seeking justice once our minds have grasped the subjects of justice.