It's about to hit the fan. (Page 6)

And that is your choice, and I support you for it.  However, I don't expect everyone to have come to the same decision, I choose to leave the choice to them, rather than arrogantly deciding for them.

Regarding your other points, the fetus is not self sufficient at all stages of development, nor does it have a heartbeat and brainwaves from the moment of conception. 

-Chris 

Drew, for me this begins to look like we are endowed with priviledges rather than rights.

For example, I have a couple of teenagers who will be driving in the next few years. The cliche story is for a teenager to say that they have a right to drive the family car, and for a parent to say, "no, you don't have a right to the car, only a priviledge, and only as long as I say so".

I'm also very uncomfortable with the notion that the government would later have the power to endow rights. I don't think that's what Jefferson was talking about. It's actually what the founders were reacting against.

They saw these rights as being endowed by something larger than themselves or the government. Jefferson called it a creator. I think his notion of a creator was not so much God, which is how we tend to read it, but more the prime-mover/first cause/Being concept of the Greek philosophers.

Kim, thanks for being willing to consider my arguement.

Your question brings my wife to mind. My wife does not accept the description of either pro-choice or pro-life. She says she is not pro-choice because she believes it could never be acceptable to kill your offspring. She says she is not pro-life because of all of the other baggage that is usually associated with the term pro-life.

So she's trying to find a third way. Quakers are weird like that. She also does not necessarily support making abortion illegal, but again as a Quaker she tends to disagree with many laws, and trusts more that people will do the right thing of their own accord.

Kevin, that's the heart of the matter for me.

If we were talking about other issues that involved the right to privacy, it becomes a completely different discussion.

And people are removed from life-support and allowed to die, yes.  Not in the corner-case you're trying to create though.  I don't think anybody here is advocating aborting a fetus at 8 1/2 months either.  I certainly am not.

You're also coming from a presumption that life exists in regards to abortion.  Others do not share that conclusion and come to a different decision.

I do not purport to be all knowing and infallible, nor do I think do any of us.  Based on that, I have trouble enforcing my belief structures on others.

-Chris 

Hmmmmm....wouldn't that make you pro-choice? 

I agree with what I've read of the South Dakota law. It does not have an execption for rape or incest. I think they have it right.

My own dear wife was the victim of childhood incest (although it was not a blood relative) that went on for a period of years, and was also raped as a young woman. She is very open about her experiences, and I only mention them to note that I am aware of the damage done to women and children by rape, incest, and sexual abuse.

You may be interested in the story of Rebecca Wasser Kiessling . (scroll down on that page for the story) She was conceived through rape, and was then given up for adoption. If abortion had been legal, she would have been aborted. She is a lawyer now and gives talks about the rights of children conceived through rape.

As to when abortion is justifiable, there is distiction to be made between direct abortion and indirect abortion.

Direct abortion is an act with the primary purpose of killing an embryo, fetus, unborn child, ect.

Indirect abortion is an act where an an embryo, fetus, unborn child, is killed, but that is not the primary intention. The primary intention would be the saving of the mother's life.

A surgical procedure on a woman with an ectopic pregnancy, where an embryo implants outside the uterus, is a good example. In this case, the purpose of the act is to save the woman's life, not to kill the embryo.

Chucky, I just wanted to put one more comment in about this one.

Some people have called abortion the insurance for contraception. The reasoning goes that there is no 100% effective form of contraception, therefore we need abortion as a backup.

Of course, I reject that arguement. If you choose to use contraception, fine. But don't use it's failer as a reason to support legal abortion. (I mean "you" as in society, not "you" as in Chucky )

And, of course, this brings up the whole topic of abortifacient forms of birth control.

(you know, I don't think DerekL has posted since he started this thread... where is he... )