Anonymous writes: “It is morally wrong to take the life of a human being (and the baby in the womb is undeniably human, the science of which is indisputable.”

Your quote of Dr. Jerome L. LeJeune, M.D. is his unsubstantiated opinion, which in this instance does not qualify as a scientific source.

“It is undeniable that the life in the womb has it's own distinct human DNA.” -You are right that this “life in the womb” is a product of DNA from a mother and father, as all of us human beings are. But so is every sperm, egg or skin cell, all of which are not human beings. What makes this different?

You get to the heart of the matter when you describe fetal abilities to hear, experience pain and other aspects of having a “central nervous system which governs motor activity as well as intellect.” A “life in the womb” is special and different from a skin cell, but it’s also not the same as you or I.

The central nervous system is not well developed until week 26 to 29. “If born at five months' gestation, chances of surviving with medical intervention are approximately 50 percent.” Source: The Second Look Project, an organization sponsored by the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Some of these statistics could be considered overly optimistic, but I use then to put your viewpoint in the best possible light.

“The fetal period begins on day 57 (first day of the ninth week) and concludes at birth.” Science calls the “life in the womb” a fetus until it’s born. Science recognizes embryos and fetuses as “early development humans.” It does not recognize them as human beings in the way that already-born, thinking, breathing human beings are.

In fact, it “is plainly seen,” as you put it, that most people agree with this. Or perhaps you “refuse to see the truth no matter how plain it is. People who are trying t[sic] rationalize an action often do this.”

http://www.secondlookproject.org/tslp_fetal.html

It is useless to reason with Anonymous. Anonymous may be a kind, generous and thoughtful person, but his/her arguments cannot be reasoned with. They are grounded solely in faith, not reason. You're not speaking the same language.

Wheaton College may be a fine academic institution--I don't really know much about it. What I do know is that its self-proclaimed guiding principle is "For Christ and His Kingdom." Not "truth," not "knowledge from all forms," but a narrow Christian lens through which all of academia is viewed.

Note: there are people grounded in both faith AND reason. Some goods example are St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

My theory is this: people are very suspect of the reasons someone else might want to have an abortion. The person's irresponsible, misguided, uninformed, immoral, a slut. As such, they want to limit access and impose restrictions on others because they believe, rightly, that abortion isn't a minor deal. However, they also believe that were they to have an abortion, they must have a really good reason. That they aren't irresponsible, misguided, uninformed, immoral, a slut.

"We don't have anything close to a pro-life culture, but we are quickly acquiring an anti-choice one."

That quote really sums things up well.

Heaven help us, he put more thought into this "rug decision" than the decision to go to war! For the rug, he admitted he knew nothing about such matters and asked for help. For the rug, he considered what statement the rug would make to others.

The war, not so much.

Still worse, he totally missed the boat in the "rug question." RDisdier is absolutely right—he was asked to pick a color, not come up with a design.

Bush brought up the rug "to talk about strategic thought." He wanted to show us how his brain works. And I've gotta say, it scares the crap out me. That rug is dusty and of shoddy craftsmanship.

Or to take his rug analogy even further, the rug is in serious need of steam cleaning. The country, the world is choking on its dust. As the Rug Doctor slogan goes we’re "Steaming mad at dirt!"

Neogeo, you gotta start printing the bumper stickers and t-shirts!

aroneus writes: "This kind of stuff gets written for people who already agree with its content, or for the half-crazed who are easily swayed by ranting hysterics." aroneus is absolutely right. This sort of thing is not meant to be seen by the mainstream public. Organizations target their mailings for different audiences. Of course, the fact there's an audience for this sort of mailing (I read the full mailing) is appalling.

cestmoi123, I also agree with you that points 1 and 2 are both true. More guns can deter and prevent, because you never know who's packing. And more guns can also cause more stupid gun incidents and escalations of minor disputes.

In addition to indicting Liberals, Ethnic Gangs, and hairy-legged PETA members, the NRA mailing lashes out against Hollywood and the violence-glorifying Media. Their president is Charlton Heston! He is Hollywood! He had a cameo in the Schwarzenegger flick True Lies! It doesn't get more "violence-glorifying" than that.

had_enough, I'm also cracking up over EMStoveken's light socket comment.

Maybe Laura should start slipping the appropriate meds in with Dubya's milk and cookies.

But then I thought, "what if she already is?" And this is the best we can get. [shudder]

Wow, Tracy Clark-Flory, that was translated badly. The New York Times wrote: "The interruption of hormone therapy during the inactive part of the regimen induces bleeding that resembles a mild period but is, in fact, caused by unstable hormone levels." This is correct. It's the interruption not the "the set of seven placebo pills" (as you wrote) that induces bleeding.