Bill D: "...Now this is pretty heavy and loaded language!"

Fair point! I apologise for the heaviness of it, I'm not a fan of four letter words normally either!

What I was trying to do was drive home the point that the 'clump of cells' in the mother's body is not just like any other clump of cells or organic matter, such as could be treated as we would inanimate orghanic matter. Instead, this clump of cells is the start of a new life.

Once we make this realisation, we find ourselves forced to take a different view of abortion. This is the crux of the argument, really. The pro-choice lobby (ok, they are not monolithic anymore than the pro-life lobby are) simply refuses to acknowledge the humanity of the unborn life - at least I have seen no evidence that they do. Were they to do so, of course it would put them in a quandary.

Referring back to the orginal thread topic, we were talking generally about society and pluralism and whether there is room for all points of view. This expanded to how laws etc., in society should be based on reason and religious beliefs (being beliefs and not rational or empirical) should be excluded from the process of society building and law making.

I have suggested pluralism is a passing phase and one or other majority view dominates from time to time. The issue of abortion shows how polemic issues make it very difficult to reach compromise in society. The pro-choice lobby believe everyone should be left decide for themselves. The pro-life lobby believe this liberty cannot be afforded individuals because to do so would be to deny the liberty and right to life of unborn people. They do not believe that private citizens especially (or anyone) should have the power of life and death over other humans.

The pro-choice lobby seem to reject the empirical scientific analysis (departing from their usual insistence on the same) and thus show their support for one aspect of the society in which they live to be based on belief (as opposed to the empirical rationalism they normally demand).

In the final analysis, the right to life must be the most fundamental of all rights, as the enjoyment of all other rights are meaningless guarantees unless one is alive to enjoy them in the first place!!

Furthermore, advocates of "choice" in this area and who believe themselves to be supporters of human rights in other areas shoudl pause and reflect on how their support for choice of abortion undermines their position. If abortion is presented as a "human right" (as some social organisations would wish it, lately Amnesty International) it becomes much harder to arfgue logically against war, murder, genocide etc., - instead of people having an absolute and immutable right to life, it all comes down to degrees of difference. Then we just have to hope those degrees don't slide too far our way!