"The point being, no one tells someone opposed to abortion that they must have one..(and if there are cases of this, I'm am opposed to it!)...so no one should make a general law that those who view abortion as sad, but sometimes the best course, cannot ever utilize it"
I think everyone is intent on shaping the kind of society we feel to be the best. This applies to all - atheist and religious alike. And whether we like it or not, the majority voice generally manges to decide what kind of society we'll have. Paradigms shift too, or pendulum back and forth. I think that's what Jean Francois Revel was on about. So today we have one kind of paradigm, tomorrow, who knows?
Thomas Paine has already dealt with the idea of 'stare decisis' in his "Rights of Man". He would say that government is by the living for the living and the living cannot be bound by the dead. Laws can and do change. Sometimes we like those changes, sometimes we don't. When we don't, we try and change them to our liking. This is what happened before Roe v. Wade and may yet happen again. The issue of abortion is a good example of how sections of society 'fight' over meaning and form, being such a controversial and polemic issue. Other things matter less to both camps and are fought over less vigorously and are less noticeable, but they are there all the same. back at the time of WW1, the world was full of jingoism, and Ministers could still call themselves Ministers for War. There has been a subtle but definite change in the 'commonsense' since then and now the same Ministers find it necessary to call themselves Ministers for Defence, though their role has hardly changed. This is just another example of how society is not something static but almost a living organism as it were that constantly struggles to define itself among its conflicting elements.
"Now...the 'others' wish to make the issue a matter of just getting more conservative judges on the courts and thus making a subjective, religiously based, moral position the law of the land"
I think I have presented a solid scientific argument for the humanity of the unborn child from conception. Some people will use the term 'zygote' or whatever as a way of distancing themselves from the humanity of the new life, but the reality is is that the life is part of a continuum beginning at conception and ending at death. Similarly child, teenager and adult all mark different stages in a person's development but at no point would we say a child is less human than a teenager or an adult.
But if a person accepts neither scientific nor religious argument for the humanity of the unborn, I really don't know where to go next. Except to suggest that such a person is now acting out from the basis of their own subjective belief and supporting the current position of the law from that belief.
Is there anyone out there who thinks the general prohibition on homicide should be a matter left to personal individual choice?