Major Nikon, I think there is very little difference between you and me on this issue, although I do think your attitude toward the anti-abortion people is more harsh than mine.
However, I'd like to respond to what you said here: "if so you should be able to offer some kind of rational and reasoned argument that doesn't involve abstract hocus pocus notions of when life begins," because I think you misunderstand my motivation in discussing that subject in my original post. You apparently are under the impression that I discussed that subject because I wanted to offer my own opinion on the issue of "when life begins." The reason I discussed that subject in my original post was because I wanted to illustrate the largely overlooked point that the anti-abortion people have been inconsistent on this issue before and after Roe vs. Wade. They were teaching something substantially different about that issue before Roe vs. Wade than what they've been teaching about it after Roe vs. Wade. And that calls into question their honesty in now claiming that abortion "murders babies" when, according to their pre-Roe vs. Wade teachings, a six-week-old fetus isn't a baby.
That's another issue, actually, one I forgot about when I wrote my original post. They have been allowed to re-define a six-week-old fetus as a "baby." They should not have been allowed to get away with that. If the soul enters the body at birth, when "God breathes the breath of life" into the newborn infant's body AT THAT MOMENT, as I was taught in Sunday School classes in Southern Baptist churches in the 1950s and 1960s, years BEFORE Roe vs. Wade, then their argument that aborting a six-week-old fetus "murders a baby" is the kind of hogwash you are claiming it is. Because there isn't anybody in that six-week-old fetus yet. Nobody has moved in there yet. According to THEIR belief system PRE-Roe vs. Wade. Which calls into question the legitimacy of their arguments now, POST-Roe vs. Wade. Do you understand now the point I was trying to make?
When I wrote the original post and posted it, I was hoping somebody who also has memories of PRE-Roe vs. Wade Sunday School class teachings on this issue would write a response corroborating my recollections. Because, as I admitted, the 55-year-old memories of just one individual are not as reliable as those of several individuals. In other words, I'd like to know that I'm right.
-- Ron
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