Kim C, I completely agree that pregnancy is up to the woman to prevent. However, conception doesn't take sides; both men and women who want this sex act to be recreational, and not procreational, have equal responsibility for contraception. Amazing what a little semantics can do, eh? Also, on those great definitions (thanks Gary T), the parens after contraception (which was correctly, to my mind, defined as that which prevents conception) included several post-conception methods of birth control, such as IUDs and RU486, which work more by preventing or undermining implantation after fertilization. This quibble assumes we all agree that conception means the fertilization of an egg by a sperm, rather than the viable implantation of that zygote in the uternine wall. Anybody want to speak to that difference, if any?

McGrath of Harlow, I think I don't understand you - you say If a fetus is viable, it's a baby. If you kill it, you're killing a baby...[which] is infanticide...Of course there have been...societies where infanticide has been legal under certain circumstances...And there are people who would wish to make it legal more widely. So far so good, you're describing legal abortion as legalized infanticide to people who believe abortion is murder, I'm with you on that argument (not that I agree with it, but I follow it). But then you say But it's a different argument. How is it different? If abortion is infanticide then it's the exact argument...?

PS: Please, I do respect your opinion, I am just trying to follow your argument. This is not Look I Can Poke A Hole In Your Logic Ha Ha. It's intended to be Can You Clarify This Point? I add this because of this being such a sensitive topic and my liking what you post on so many planes that I don't want you all POed at me.