If they did, they couldn't control the fundy vote.

Oh, wait: they could just hate gays forever and ever!

Scott Peterson was given a death sentence for 2 murders not 1.

I hate to seem callous..but, a fetus is not a baby...a baby has to be born, and viable...w/o extreme technological assistance...until the fetus is capable of living independently [no it doesn't have to get a job or independently track down food, I mean that it is not biologically dependent upon the body of the mother] of the woman who will give birth to him or her in the normal course of events, it ain't a baby...it is a fetus.

That's why there are two different words for the a baby and a fetus. If you describe a fetus as a baby you are letting the "pro-life" drones define the debate.

A baby ain't a fetus and vice versa.

Only if it can be done in a way to protect the right to abortion and if it highlights male violence against women.

or 9-weeks gestation pregnancy? A 9-week old baby, in the reality where I reside, is a baby that was born 9 weeks ago. Not a pregnancy that is 7 months shy of delivery.

I say this not to belittle the pain of losing this woman, or the expected child that might have been born 7-8 months from now, but because we need to remain rational.

It is sad when a woman dies while pregnant, for any reason. A pregnancy is the embodiment of hope, of possibility, of becoming. And death is particularly cruel when it destroys that hope. But an embryo of 9-weeks gestational age is not a baby, and shouldn't be counted as such.

There were pregnant women in the Twin Towers 9 years ago. (I remember a book that detailed the goings-ons in the lives of many of the victims; one woman in particular had recently discovered she was pregnant, and was going to leave work early that day to go to the OB, but of course, never left). But the pregnancies, rightfully, were not counted as separate victims of the atrocity.

There is a world of difference between a first-trimester embryo and a near-full-term baby. To pretend otherwise is irrational, and ultimately disrespectful.

You just called this a "9-week old baby". She didn't lose a 9-week old baby. She died while carrying a foetus at 9 weeks gestation. If pro-choice women who should know better are ceding that a foetus = a baby, then abortion must really be "baby killing". Who can be in favor of killing babies. We lost, folks. The abortion wars are over for at least a generation. The pro-choice groups are considered radical. Most Amerians consider themselves "pro-life". I'm not sure we didn't lose when we let them frame themselves that way - after all, who is "anti-life". We are rapidly moving back to the pre-Roe status quo, with abortion being available only in certain liberal states (and highly restricted even there). Unless we find a new frame, and soon, abortion rights in the U.S. will disappear in my our lifetimes.

Lacy Peterson was just a few days from delivering. The baby could most likely easily have survived outside of her body with only the standard care any baby needs. He did not kill a foetus - he killed a fully formed baby along with its mother.

Parson Jim's post: only if it is snarky and misses the point. (Why else would it be fun?)

With Americans more and more worried about the rights of more and more entities (see animal rights), wanting to protect the rights of fetuses is only expectable. Of course it is an ad hoc decision, but it obviously is one that goes -- or can be seen as going (despite its older and more conservative roots) -- in the direction of the development of liberal thinking. This is not going to be the last time, and I can see a big discussion coming on the topic. A topic that is ultimately arbitrary, but which will be debated as if there were natural rules set in stone for the beginning of life.

Ah life.

Instead of talking about "making abortion illegal again," which sounds regressive, let's talk about "extending human rights to the unborn," which sounds progressive.

Pro-lifers need to become progressive! Back in the 1980s, the San Diego Pro-Life League had a pamphlet or a flyer or a brochure which quoted Dr. Albert Schweitzer as having said "If you lose respect for part of life, you lose respect for all of it," and saying they were "Restoring Respect for Life." The key word is "Restoring." They were looking backwards, to a time that never was.

Pro-life liberals, on the other hand, see extending human rights to the unborn as social progress, in the tradition of women's rights and civil rights, children's rights and animal rights.

The 14th Amendment (ironically, one of the amendments enacted to abolish human slavery) refers to persons as "citizens born or naturalized." Pro-lifers argue that it has generally come to refer to all human beings, because otherwise one could justify gunning down illegal aliens at the border.

However, if it is true that human rights cannot legally begin until birth...

Instead of packing the courts with conservatives, I think pro-lifers should be pushing for a Constitutional Amendment to extend human rights to the unborn. The central issues in the abortion debate are the "personhood" or moral status of the unborn, and the extent of individual and marital privacy.

Stephen Douglas has been quoted as having said in debate with Abraham Lincoln that human slavery be resolved through the democratic process. Let the people decide: if they "want slavery, they shall have it; if they prohibit slavery, it shall be prohibited."

Whether or not democracy is the ideal form of government is not the issue here, but since we live in a democracy, what is wrong with Douglas' statement? It was through the democratic process that we gave women the right to vote, gave 18 year olds the right to vote, and even attempted the Equal Rights Amendment. Isn't this how we should extend human rights to the unborn? Isn't this how we should give rights to animals?

Pro-lifers compare Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott decision of 1857. In both cases, rights were denied to an entire class of humans based upon an arbitrary criterion, such as developmental status or the color of the skin. The conclusion author Paul Nowak draws from this in Guerilla Apologetics for Life Issues is that the Supreme Court is not infallible.

Roe v. Wade was decided in part by denying rights to the unborn, but also by assuming a right to privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut assumed a right to marital privacy regarding the use of contraception) not clearly spelled out in the Constitution.

Can we overturn Roe without overturning Griswold?

Is the solution to the abortion crisis to pack the Court with conservatives who might also oppose things like church-state separation (respected pro-life columnist Nat Hentoff, a self-described "liberal Jewish atheist," must know that in the Newdow case regarding the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, Justice Scalia had to excuse himself from the case, because he doesn't believe in complete church-state separation) and deny us contraception and a right to privacy (Griswold)--or is the solution to enact a Constitutional Amendment to extend human rights to the unborn?

And again, as Paul Nowak says, the Supreme Court is not infallible. The views of the Court are constantly changing. In 1986, the Supreme Court upheld a sodomy law. A few years ago, they reversed themselves, which outraged the religious right, but pleased lesbians and gays, the parents and friends of lesbians and gays, and political liberals.

I cannot understand how pro-life liberals and pro-life Democrats, most of whom respect the private nonviolent behavior of consenting adults, most of whom support church-state separation, and most of whom support contraception and better sex education as the most effective way to prevent unplanned pregnancies, would want to align themselves with pro-life conservatives and pro-life Republicans in order to pack the courts with conservatives in the hopes of eventually overturning Roe v. Wade.

It's my conviction that we do have a fundamental right to privacy, and I cannot advocate putting the women of America unwillingly under electronic surveillance, probing their past without their consent, denying them contraception, or even going through their personal effects (although the Fourth Amendment does protect us against unwarranted search and seizure). There must be a better way.

Until we pro-life Democrats have enough numbers to change our Party platform to one calling for a Human Life Amendment (as is the case with the Republican Party), I think we should be advocating: easy access to contraception; better, more comprehensive sex education; real social support for pregnant women and children; and reasonable restrictions on abortion (e.g., a ban on partial-birth abortion, parental notification or consent, 24 hour waiting periods, informed consent or "women's right to know" laws, etc.)

Doing this would dramatically reduce the abortion rate, which would please both pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike within our Party. It would also be consistent with Bill Clinton's "safe, legal and rare" position. If "safe, legal and rare" becomes the new mantra in the Democratic Party with regards to abortion, I will consider it real progress from the 1970s, when pro-choice bumper stickers read: "Abortion is every woman's choice."

Again, instead of packing the courts with conservatives in the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade, I favor grassroots activism and educating the American public about when human life begins, prenatal development, etc. in order to get them to eventually support a Constitutional Amendment to extend human rights to the unborn.