> This one seems simple to me. Surely you, of all people, understand that if you want to protect, display, or exploit your own "rights" (however you choose to define that word) you also must protect, display, or exploit others' possibly -- probably -- contradictory "rights." Sounds like Howard, as ever, advocates the most reasonable and intelligent stance.

I don't understand. To me it comes down to one fundamental question: at one point does human life begin? If the answer is not "conception" then what's wrong with aborting prior to the point at which human life begins?

I agree that women have the right to control what they do with their bodies up until the point that what they're carrying becomes human life (if indeed at any point in time a fetus is a human life -- I'm not entirely convinced babies are fully human). At that point in time, any rights they have to reproductive privacy are trumped by the need of the government to protect that human life.

I agree with you, Mousie, when you say that we often have to make decisions between two sets of conflicting rights. In such cases we have to create a sort of hierarchy of importance, in which some rights are more important than others. The right to speech, a fundamental right in the United States, is less important than your right to life, and so I can be locked up if I tell people to kill you. This is because life is, in my opinion anyway, the single most important right that exists ("life, liberty, property" is a good ordering of the basic rights). If there is a conflict between a woman's right to privacy and the right to life of her unborn child, the unborn child's right to life should be the one that triumphs.

What I'm particularly confused about is whether or not that unborn child, at any point during the pregnancy, can be said to be human. If it isn't ever a human, then no conflict exists as far as I'm concerned and abortions should be legal and fine.

What I don't understand is why people are against abortion if they also think it should be legal. Why's it a bad thing if fetuses aren't human? I understand being against something and also wanting to legalize it; I think smoking tobacco is a "bad" activity that I'd prefer people not do, but I don't want to make it illegal. In that case, though, the only reason I think it's bad is for health reasons. If fetuses don't have the right to life, then how are abortions bad?

Stephen