Last week Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon hid under his desk and allowed new restrictions on abortion to become state law without his signature.

Well, he didn't really hide under his desk, possibly because that it would have made it too difficult to put his finger to the wind to check the prevailing sentiment about Senate Bill 793.

Instead, he let the constitutional deadline for signing or vetoing the bill expire, which means the bill becomes law Aug. 28. Then he sent out his press secretary, Scott Holste, to say that the governor would take no position on the merits of the bill. "Gov. Nixon believes that given the legislative deliberations ... the appropriate action is to allow the bill to go into effect," Mr. Holste said.

By these standards, Mr. Nixon would never veto anything the Legislature has deliberated. He ceded control to the Legislature, making his job entirely superfluous. Just stick everything in a drawer and let the clock expire.

The law requires abortion clinics to offer women a chance to view ultrasound images and listen to heartbeats of their fetuses. It requires that 24 hours before an abortion procedure takes place, a woman must show up in person at the abortion clinic to be counseled on the "anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child."

The law will present new, but not insurmountable, hardships on women seeking abortions. It may prevent a few of the approximately 7,500 abortions done in Missouri each year.

It will do nothing to ensure that the child who is born is wanted and loved or receives medical care after birth or enough to eat or a decent education, issues far less important to state lawmakers than intruding on a very difficult moment in a woman's life.

Here's the strangest part of the law: It requires abortion providers to present women with a brochure, to be provided by the state Department of Health and Human Services, that reads, "The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being."

Really? We know that is what many people believe, and we respect their beliefs. But belief is different from fact, and science has not established the precise moment when human life begins.

This is a religious, theological and, indeed, metaphysical question. No public body, even those far more learned than the Missouri Legislature, can answer it. Nor should it try.

Not even Jay Nixon can cede that authority.