G. Wood wrote:

That was very good, KG, and I learned a lot from it. I can only offer
another personal opinion, that right now the unborn have just about
zero rights. In a country where our founders wrote that it is "self
evident" that everyone has the right to LIFE, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness, it seems to me that we completely overlook the life part
and focus on the pursuit of happiness as far as the abortion question
is concerned. Shouldn't a little attention be paid to life?

We ALL have personal opinions, GW. But those aren't the proper
basis for laws. If they were, then we'd all end up living with the
consequences of BILLIONS of personal opinions held by other people,
whether we liked them or not. (We already get too much of that, of
course; but it's not something to be encouraged.)

The right to life may have been self evident; but the definition of
"everyone" clearly was not. If you rely too literally or narrowly on
the exact words written by Jefferson, et al, then slavery should still
be legal, and women shouldn't be allowed to vote. (And, it might be
worth noting that the Declaration Of Independence is NOT the same as the
constitution.) Remember that many of the men who signed their names to
the documents you're quoting of were slave owners at the time. The most
important thing about what they wrote was their assumption that they
DIDN'T and COULDN'T know the answers to every question, or even what the
questions might be, some time in the future. They instead made sure
that we had a structured means for growing and changing our government
in ways that might not be forseeable to them, and that the government
would be limited by the people, instead of the other way around.

And no, we shouldn't pay "a little" attention to life. We should
pay a LOT of attention to it. I don't think there's much about the
abortion debate (in the legal arena at least) that truly includes anyone
pursuing happiness at the expense of life. The problem is defining what
"life" is, and whether the definition applies to an unborn child.

I suggested a couple possible definitions in a response to Ed's
thoughts, just a few minutes ago. If you're interested int MY personal
opinions, those might be worth a quick look.

KG