John Hardly:

"Since you compared the "badness" of abortion to the "badness" of amputation, I was commenting that, to me, a major difference between abortion and amputation is that abortion IS -- not the removal of a leg."

Abortion & amputation are alike in that they are bad things. Of course there are many ways in which they are different, but I was talking about that particular similarity.

Try self-defense instead of amputation. Self-defense is sometimes the removal of another life, and thus a bad thing, but better than the alternative. Like abortion.

And before you ask, I'm not saying that abortion is self defense.

I'm saying that you don't always have a choice between good and bad; sometimes you only get to choose between bad and worse, and it can be hard to tell which is which.

"But what I was asking you is if you believe that abortion is the taking of a human life. At any point in the term?"

I believe an egg, a sperm, or a fertilized egg is alive, but I think none is a human being. I think a viable fetus is a human being, but I don't believe a viable fetus is ordinarily aborted. Not legally, anyhow, but correct me if I'm wrong. I do not know at what point a sperm and egg become human or at what point a fetus become viable.

But whether or not abortion is homicide, we have a right to do it when we believe it is the lesser evil.

Letting both mother and child die when abortion could save the mother is wrong. Using abortion as a substitute for contraception is generally wrong (and impractical). Those are relatively easy decisions, though sometimes terribly painful. Other cases are not so clear cut and we have to do the best we can. Because we are responsible both for what we do, and for what we do not do.

clint