Ornery, do those innalienable rights extend to the child of rape or incest. I would say they do. The problem with inflexible absolutes is that they create logical conundrums that are irresolvable. What happens when an irresistable force meets an immovable object. You have a situation where only 50 of the population are by chance required to go to term with something they may not want to. Why does the other 50%, who never have to face this issue directly, and who definitely make the most noise about it, have any business in this issue. Why can't this be a personal decission only of the people directly affected. The temptation is to see the fetus in it's future potential as a conscious human being. From another point of view it is no more conscious or signifigant than a tumor. What is so different about a sperm and egg after combination than before except in our imaginations or as a result of a religious doctrine. Abortion is murder. Abortion has to be a right granted to women who choose it. Abortion must therefore be an exceptable form of murder. Inalieble, for pragmatic social reasons must apply only to conscious humans.
There is much more going on in the abortion issue that what is argued on the surface. Why, for example, with all the male, especially and fundamentalist male interest in abortion, is not just what I suggest happening. Why are there no crash scientific programs to allow men to impragnent themselves and save all those unwanted fetuses. If men had children there is no doubt in my mind that anybody who thought that abortion should be illegal would be seen as criminal. I can just see the fanatics here staying home for the next 18 years. Or how about pro life wives lining up for fetal transplant. In the pro life stance one sees a sickning punitiveness. They got pregnant, they can just take responsibility for their actions. No no, you thak responsibility. You want the THE BABY to be born, get involved in a crash program to bring it to term yourself. Fact is you're not interested, because the issue really isn't about the sanctity of life; it's about control, making others conform to what satisfies your imagination.
Every time you pluck your eyebrow or bleed billions of clonable cells, potential humans you care nothing about, are murdered. The difference is all in what you imagine it to be.
I am pro life. I will not get an abortion. I will not cause a pregnancy that is unwanted. If your interest extends beyond mine invest in ways to personally grow the fetus yourself.