To what extent should the courts be a distillation of public opinion on a moral issue, and to what extent should they lead opinion?

Clearly changing the public sentiment on a complex moral issue like abortion is much harder than getting a few judges into place on the right bench; is judicial activism ever a proper use of the court?

Think about the civil rights charge. The courts stood well in front of the public sentiment in many parts of the country, and yet I think most people would argue that it was the right move. The intervention of the courts was a necessary step in order to both safeguard the immediate rights of the minority population, and also to impose a behavioral injunction on the majority population that I think has been very successful in changing a generation's view of race.

I don't know that the crusade against abortion will be as well fought along those lines. I think the explosion of "pro-life" crisis pregnancy centers is a great example of the best possible way approach this problem. Do you believe that abortion is morally wrong, and the worst possible choice for both mother and child? Then give the mother real options! These place provides counseling, prenatal care, in many instances they can provide housing and financial support for mothers who are unable to remain in their present circumstances (kicked out of the house, abusive spouse, etc.); then they help the mother through the adoption process if she chooses not to raise the baby herself.

This is an answer that both reduces the number of abortions (isn't that the real goal?) by giving compassionate support for other real options, and also changes the public sentiment by demonstrating a face to the pro-life movement that isn't waving bloody signs and harassing women walking into clinics already under great duress.

I guess this long rambling post boils down to this - I am staunchly pro-life, but my goal is to lower the number of mothers who choose abortion, and I think changing public sentiment and offering real alternatives is a much more effective way to do that than getting a few judges on the right bench.

-sm

ding,ding,ding. once again sm is better than i am at putting thoughts to print in a coherent manner.

Because up until that moment, there is another person involved who also has rights to be considered. The mother.

A question that just occured to me, and don't try to assault me for it, is if choice is such an issue then why is reducing the number of abortions of such importance? I'm not leaning either way in this question, but seriously wondering why.

she is just as responsible for a newborn's wellbeing as she was immediately before the birth. why shouldn't it be the mother's right to kill the child within one hour of birth?

keep in mind - i am not arguing in favor of a ban on abortion.

Patently false; the mother's responsibility changes enormously after birth, otherwise adoption would not be possible.

"Explosion"? Where?

I agree that it's a good idea to these women options, but facilities offering real-world, practical solutions and help to these women after the baby is born are few and far between. The vast majority of the "crisis pregnancy centers" are run by extremist Chsristians who guilt their patrons into believing that abortion is wrong under any circumstances, and give them little if any assistance once the baby is born.

If anyone can offer solutions and assistance to pregnant women before and after the child is born, that's wonderful and I'm all in favor of it. I'm not convinced that the goal of many crisis pregnancy centers is helping women, children, or society--but rather pushing an agenda.

well, that was phrased objectively. i know a couple of people that work in these centers, and as far as a i can tell their "agenda" is to help young women who are looking for assistance. but if they're christians, they must be extremists using every dirty trick in the book to advance a darkhearted cause.

No the abortion debate also begins when a woman has been raped and might be pregnant, but can't get the morning after pill because her pharmacist thinks being forced to carry a rapists baby to term is advancing the cause of motherhood.

cite? the only pharmacist in town? no ER? i believe the standard rape kit has the "morning after" pill.

why should a pharmacist be compelled to provide a service that is immoral, in his view?

rich, we aren't talking about outlawing anything here. certainly not outlawing an abortion to kill a rapists baby so you can put that scenario away.

Well, one pharmacist had a different interpretation.

I don't know about it being a standard in a rape kit, since it is not yet an over the counter medication. It might be standard for a doctor to prescribe it, but a pharmacy has to fill the perscription, which was a problem here. Can you imagine having to run around ot fill a perscription like that after a rape? Can you imagine what it would feel like to be turned away by the pharmacist? Maybe she should have told him the circumstances in detail?

I thought we had gotten over this whole tendency to re-traumitize the rape victim thing back in the 80's.

Fortunately, the pharmacy also has the right to fire the pharmacist .

A) - the pharmacist has the right not to prescribe the offensive material, so long as he is willing to face the consequences.
B) - the pharmacy has the right to terminate his employment for any reason they choose.

The core question
 

For a murder to happen, a person has to be killed. If the an abortion is defined as murder, and the victim as a person, then much, much more should change to be consistent with the stance that the rights of the fetus/embryo/zygote include more that just protection from murder.

I find the prospect that the abortion of a zygote, while certainly “alive”, should, could be considered “murder” as sensible as the prospect that a woman carrying this zygote should be counted as two people in any other circumstance. If she drinks, smokes, or does any other legal physical activities minors are prohibited from, is she breaking the law? If “it’s” a person, and murder-able, why--no--how can the discussion stop there? Which brings me to…

The core question in the abortion debate:
"When does human personhood begin?"
A description of all viewpoints

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_when.htm

This is a calm, reasoned, informed discussion of the facts and opinions on all sides. I do not know of a “bright line” that separates one side from the other. I expect that search for such a line will be futile and acrimonious, because such a line does not exist. It is a range, not a point. At either end of the spectrum, the decision is clear, but in the immortal words of Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, “What was that part in the middle?”. The middle (range) is the part where lots of stuff happens, including personhood. That’s where the answer lies, along a continuum. After all, we’re human beings, taking nine months to develop. For me the emphasis here is on the being, as an active verb, as well as a noun. We don’t talk of dead people as “human was’es” or of a pregnant woman’s baby as a “human will-be’s”.

In the Roe v Wade decision, dividing the pregnancy into trimesters seems a wise, Solomonic decision, the best possible resolution in a minefield of difficult choices. To consider the independent viability of the fetus in the first trimester to be approximately zero, the court concluded that the decision was a medical judgment to be decided by the woman and her physician. In the third trimester where viability is much more likely permitted the court to consider a fetus more like a person and entitled to more recognition as such.

The search for a single marker to define personhood, and from that murder, and medical procedure and everything in between is doomed.

Saying “I’m pregnant” doesn’t work in carpool lanes either, (except in California, predictably).

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20041122.html

Not if Bush has anything to say about it:
Luckily, he doesn't have complete say:

I also know a few people who work in a "crisis pregnancy center" through my niece's experience a couple years ago. She had already decided to terminate her pregnancy (she was 18 at the time) but went to one of these centers just to see what they had to say--afterall it was free, and "they sounded nice on the phone."

All I know is that I got a phone call from a crying, freaked out teenager who was just told that she was going to burn in hell, had bible quotes thrown in her face and was lied to about the rate of fetal development.

Hey, I'm sure your friends are real swell people and they'll go straight to heaven for their efforts. I hate what these assholes did to my niece, and thus the term "crisis pregnancy center" has a bit of a different meaning to me.

Can you please quote where I said all Christians are evil? I don't recall saying that.