Thanks, Amos. That was expressed better than I could have done.

Nick, in this very post you have done exactly as I mentioned - attributed lack of morality to godlessness. Your affection for embryonic life leads you to state baldly that atheism leads to the devaluation of life, which is not true.

You must try to understand that supporters of free choice for women who have conceived are concerned with the women, not their putative progeny. I'm guessing you yourself would draw a line somewhere. Would you not sanction abortion if the woman would die without it? Would you charge a sixteen year old, or a twelve year old, girl with capital murder if she obtained an abortion? Do you hold that every miscarried two week old invisible to the naked eye embryo requires a Christian burial, funeral rites and all? Would you require a woman to carry an anencephalic baby to term?

In the case of the mentally handicapped women, they are born humans with thoughts, emotions, nervous systems which can feel pain and discomfort - they are persons.

In the case of an embryo, one person already exists, has thoughts, emotions, understands mortality, feels pain, and so on. The embryo cannot be said to experience any of these things, it is separate from the mother only by virtue of its having a complement of the father's DNA, and this genetic duality is not even unique, as there are people (chimeras) who have other DNA in their bodies.

I have pointed out before: other mammals do not value their embryos and fetuses as humans do; they adsorb them or abandon them if times are tough, which is something they do not do once the pups/kits/cubs are born. It is then when a mother will fight, hunt and starve in defense of her children's lives. Nature recognises the difference between the born and the unborn: why can't you?