So let me get this straight . . .

The Journal believes that the law on medical issues ought to be decided by States, not by the federal government.

So . . . the Journal would support overruling Roe v. Wade, because that decision obliterated the States' ability to legislate with regard to most abortions.

What this (and other Journal editorials) demonstrates is that the E-board at the Journal is a little lacking in candle power.

"Paging Dr. Pablo Rodriguez ...

Paging Dr. Pablo Rodriguez ...

You're appointment in Hell is waiting!"

brassband, you bring up a valid point. If the Projo were legitimately concerned about the federal government's interference, it would squarely oppose Roe. Such is not the case.

100 years from now people will read the Congressional testimony that Justin has cited and wonder how any rational person could ever have thought that a fetus was not a human being.

Funny, how we look back and wonder how people could have thought that slaves and Native Americans were anything but human, while our society is doing the same to unborn (and now newborn) children.

But, as is too often the case, when human rights clash with economic convenience, sometimes economic convenience wins out.

Whether it be a desire to own slaves so that labor costs can be kept down or a desire to abort a child so that living expenses can be kept down, the net effect is a violation of human dignity and rights.

By the way, Justin, feel free to use the words unborn child or baby.

The pro-abortion lobby's refering to an unborn child as a fetus when talking about partial birth abortion is nothing more than another attempt to sanitize words for the public.

Dear Anthony,

It is referred to as a fetus because that's what it is.

The pro-birth's lobby continues to attempt to turn 3 single cells into a baby. Not going to happen now or any other time.

What will happen over 100 years is we will get better at viability and predicting the exact moment that egg and sperm have joined. Both of these concepts in turn should dramatically reduce the number of abortions making sides happy.

Bobby, it looks like you didn't learn much at Bishop Connolly. When I went there, we wouldn't even let Ted Kennedy on campus.

Fists, partial birth abortion is a long way from 3 cells.

Second, not knowing much more about you other than your far left ideals, I wouldn't know if your sexual preference would ever afford you the opportunity to see the sonograms of your own child. If you ever have the opportunity to see the human shape and the beating heart only weeks into gestation, I doubt you'd be so flip about life.

Dear Perry,

What does sexual preference have to do with seeing sonograms? I'm straight, been married twice, and have seen many.

As an adopted person, I don't think I'm flip about life.

What it comes down to is this: It is not yet a human. It will never be a decision made over my body.

What I did learn at Bishop Connolly was a true passion for St. Thomas Aquinas. He taught us to never reject science. (Most Jesuits are privately pro-choice as are most, very surprisingly, Benedictians)

My views on this, or any other issue have nothing to do with silly constructs of left or right. I try to view what the Founders would have done, Madison indicates that enumerating the Rights does not limit them - hence an inherent right to privacy may exist, and then I what I understand about science.

If you've forgotten, I'm a pro-choice, pro-first and second amendments, pro death, anti capital gains tax (who believes that the state sales tax should be a robust 4%), supporter of the original Iraq resolution who believes our troops will be there for 10 years or more, member of the DLC.

How do you make left or right out of any of that?

This question is neither rhetorical nor sarcastic. At what point does it stop being a fetus and start being a baby?

Dear SusanD,

One which is obvious and one where it's a total mystery:

1.) When the mommy decides she will bring it to term and therefore "lease" her body to the child.

2.) When God infuses a soul. (The Church has been all over the map on this. Life at conception, like double rapture, is really a 19th century construct) Since we can't use that for making law, we can use a "viability outside the womb" measurement.

Bobby,
Speaking of silly constructs, that is exactly what the Supreme Court did in Roe. In its attempt to justify making abortion on demand legal, it created an artificial construct to determine when human life begins.

I would suggest to you that the right to life, which is explicitly mentioned by the Founding Fathers as a bedrock of our Republic, outweighs the right to privacy, a right only recently introduced and inferred into American jurisprudence by the Supreme Court within the latter half of the 20th Century.

I grant you that it is the lawful right of the Supreme Court to make such decision, but think of it. We, as a society, allow 9 politically connected lawyers to be appointed by the President so that they may interpret a document that derives its strength from a premise that God has bestowed certain inalienable rights on all human beings.

Certainly, the Supreme Court's authority is lawful, but to suggest that it is always moral or based in science is incorrect. Cases during the period of slavery, such as the infamous Dred Scott decision highlight the moral vaccuum in which decisions are sometimes made.

If you believe that certain rights are inalienable, no human is morally entitled to abridge those rights, to include justices of the Supreme Court.

On the scientific front, we know that premature babies can live outside of the womb well past the age at which abortion is legal. We know that surgical procedures can be performed on babies still in the womb, just as they can on any other human being. That is science.

To suggest that because an unborn baby is dependent on its mother for life, it is not a human being, ignores the reality of human life. A 6 month old "born" baby is no less dependent on that same mother for both physical and emotional nourishment, but no one would suggest that a 6 month old is the "property" of his or her mother.

Science is clear that life begins at some point before a baby exits the womb. However, one can conveniently choose to interpret science differently.

Eugenics was once considered a highly scientific academic discpline at colleges and universities in the United States and research was funded by prestigious institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institute.

It was not that long ago that the study of Eugenics led some of the brightest scientific minds--not only in WWII Germany, as we'd like ourselves to believe, but here in the United States as well--told the world that certain races were superior to others and began developing abortion and forced sterilization policies.

The "science" of Eugenics warned against the evils of miscegenation and the need for gentic purity. The only difference between the Nazis and many American academics was that the Nazis were in a position to implement their eugenics-based policies.

Before the Nazis, the US was the leader in promoting such laws. In 1896, Connecticut passed laws prohibiting anyone who was epileptic or "feeble-minded" from marrying with the goal of stopping their reproduction. Forced sterilization laws were passed and upheld by a US Supreme Court 1927 ruling in Buck v. Bell. California alone forcibly sterilized over 60,000 people.

In the US, federal laws were passed to limit the number of "inferior stock" southern and eastern European immigrants in 1924 so as to "protect" the nation's gene pool. Following suit, Sweden forcibly sterilized ethnic and racial minorities over a 40 year period.

If you read the transcripts of those Nazi eugenics administrators tried at Nuremburg, they cited US forced sterilization laws as their inspiration for the Nazi-era abortion and forced sterilization programs.

My point to all this is that when you evaluate scientific evidence, you must do so by looking at the actual evidence and not the current interpretation of the evidence by particular group of scientists or an academic discipline.

You point about viability reminds us that the partial birth abortion debate is not really new.

In ancient Sparta, newborn babies were left outside for a length of time, because it was thought that those babies meant to survive would live, while those babies meant to die would perish. To Spartans, "viability" as a human meant that an infant baby needed to live, literally, outside, for a period of time without support from the mother.

The United States has always had a pro-eugenics mentality and as the partial birth abortion debate shows, we're not that far from being a modern day Sparta.

2.) When God infuses a soul. (The Church has been all over the map on this. Life at conception, like double rapture, is really a 19th century construct) Since we can't use that for making law, we can use a "viability outside the womb" measurement.

And I'd also like to know if you are going to carry this to its logical conclusion and start espousing the belief that the Earth is at the center of the Universe and all else revolves around it because as we know, the Church has been all over the map on that one too.

Dear smmtheory,

If you know anything about me at all, it's that I am the biggest Separation guy out there.

Anthony,

We operate on all different organs in the body. Until the fetus becomes a baby, it is an extension of the female body and not an individual yet. Therefore, the fact that you COULD operate on a fetus does not make it a baby all by that fact's lonesome.

I respect your argument about the slippery slope, although I disagree that it is play here, since I use it often regarding the 1st Amendment.

I would also note by my definition that when you DO operate on a fetus, since you obviously plan to bring it to term (otherwise, why bother??) then it becomes a baby via the mother's choice.

Until the fetus becomes a baby, it is an extension of the female body and not an individual yet.

Not true. The fetus, even the embryo, is a genetically unique organism that will, unless removed forcibly from its natural habitat, advance in the usual course of human development of its own volition. That the female body acts as the habitat for the early stages of that development does not make the distinct organism merely an extension of it.

Dear Justin,

You left out one little thing that makes a big difference: "able to survive on its own." The fetus is nothing without the womb.

If the woman chooses not to be the habitat, what is the fetus to do??

This is why outside viability is so important.

"Able to live on its own"? So does the convalescent live at the whim of the caretaker?

But I anticipated your question (of course). How would you — or society, for that matter — look upon a person on whom, for some reason tracing back to his or her own actions, fell the responsibility for another's life, such that a mere nine months of inconvenience and discomfort (yes, ending in some temporary pain) would mean life or death for the other, but who refused to make that sacrifice?

Suppose, for instance, a night of self-indulgence, on my part, brought a dawn that found me to be the person on whom another's very life depended. Now suppose I declare that I have no responsibility for that other person and wish him dead rather than causing me inconvenience for less than a year (at which point society would step in on my behalf, if I so chose). What would you think of me?

I'd think me a selfish person with a callous disregard for human life. And if that human life were my own offspring, I'd think myself a monster (with, of course, the opportunity for repentance and ultimate reconciliation with God).

Dear Justin,

What about if the event which caused such an act was a rape?

How you love to put this all on the woman when both parties share responsibility.

Women are not second class citizens and they have a right not to bring potential life to term if they don't wish too. It is neither callous or selfish or anything else: it's just a choice.

Until it becomes your body, you shouldn't even be involved.

By the way, again for the 70th time, life at conception is a 19th Century concoction. Even the Bibe doesn't support it in it's one clue left in Leviticus.