As for rape, for Christians, that point is moot as every soul is precious in God’s eyes.

More so, since Jesus, more appropriately, Mary, was descended from a bastard child of a prostitute. In between, King David abused his authority to kill the husband of a woman that he lusted after. I believe that is akin to rape in that he took what wasn’t his to take, nevertheless, Solomon was born as a result of that marriage.

I’d be happy if abortions became rare and cases of convenience relagated to the history books.

I find it amazing that people can so casually dehumanize a child and condone killing that child for convenience and profit. For those espousing women’s rights, how many future women have been killed in the name of “rights”?

In the exceedingly rare cases where the mother’s health is truly in jeopardy, I can understand the case for abortion (if the fetus would not be viable). But solely for convenience, as the vast majority of abortions are? It leads one to question what else will be condoned in the name of convenience.

Obama is very likely going to be Hillary’s running mate in ‘08.

Who’s choice? That’s the problem we have. (Remember: there’s two or more people there and only one of them gets to make the choice of life or death. And the one who makes the “choice” gets to live regardless of the final decision.)

You’re outnumbered. Extremes in political philosophy have always been in the minority in America.

Opposing abortion is “extreme”? You’re kidding, right?

Let me give you some unsolicited advice. Just because you’re a “moderate”, doesn’t mean you are any more of an open minded person or aren’t any less “extreme”. It just means you take a little from each prevailing camp of ideas. Conservativism is just a collection of ideas. Being for abortion and conservative usually don’t go together and could possibly mean that one isn’t a conservative.

When one holds many ideas and beliefs that are similar, we tend to group them to identify them easier. It’s kind of like an easy access file system for your brain. No different than calling someone a Christian and expecting them to hold certain views. No different than being a Japanese guy and expecting them to be have certain culture customs and beliefs. Doesn’t mean that one will toe the line to the group, it’s just a general marker so the human mind can make easy distinctions.

We “moderates” (La Shawn dislikes that term), Independents or whatever are the ones who ignore the special interest groups and cast votes on the basis of our own individual perceptions of each issue.

We conservatives do the same thing. (Notice I didn’t say partisans. You may be confusing someone who honestly holds conservative or liberal beliefs with someone who will change their beliefs to fit the party.)

I agree with you whole-heartedly that every life is precious, whether they be in the womb, 1 day old, 1 year old, black, white, yellow, or brown. In many (if not most) cases of elective abortion, a bad situation is compounded by a monumental decision. Choice to kill life should not be made lightly by anyone.

Our paper, the Tampa Tribune, just ran a story the other day (can’t find the link) about the youngest fetus born here. At 27 weeks, she weighed less than a can of soda. Now, as a teenager, she’s an accomplished violin player, though still somewhat small of stature. I so agree, LaShawn, poor, poor babies.

Carridine,
Most people reading this board agrees with that statment. The problem is that Bush is inconsistent in his position on aborting embryos. I don’t want to get all ‘nuanced’ on you, but the problem is that Bush doesn’t support a full ban on killing human embryos.

Me, personally, I’ve NEVER read of a fertilized human zygote developing into a dolphin or a giraffe (Woman gives birth to giraffe!), so the idea that God’s Law marks humans as humans from the moment of conception is congruent with science and observed reality.

It does, however, make abortion a vile and murderous event.

Neil,

It’s also true that black and hispanic women between ages 15-44 are up to 3 times as likely as white women to have abortions. If you look at the latest trending reports compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this trending is going up. Rougly speaking, 5 percent of black women have abortions, 4 percent of hispanic women, and 1.5 percent of white women.