I thought I would add that the conversation between Bex and Jill here got me thinking. I find that some of my views about abortion have changed since I've gone through the process of becoming a mother. I don't want to try to persuade anyone, but the subject has come up here (including a menion by me), and I thought I'd just share my personal thoughts.

When I was pregnant, I thought about this too. I believe a fetus starts to have a heartbeat at about 6 weeks. I remember thinking then, "this is a little person. I could never stop a little life like this." But then you have to ask, when does this bundle of cells actually become a human being? Any line that we drew morally, or in the law, would be arbitrary surely. If I ask the question of myself, I'd have to say that at the moment of conception, that is where you have a growing life rather than a couple of gametes. If someone told me I had just now become pregnant, I would consider that a human life was growing inside of me. Under normal circumstances I don't think I would ever want to stop that life. I used to have the view that a bundle of a few cells, while having the potential to become a human, is not actually the same as a human. I think I've shifted a little from that now, and while I would not give a small bundle of cells the same rights as an actual baby, I also would feel personally that if it was growing inside me, that it was my baby, even if it had no consciousness yet. Maybe it's nature's design, working on me as a parent to protect and nurture my offspring, I don't know.

Here is where things need to be qualified though. These are my personal beliefs, but what about others who feel differently? OK, let's say a woman carelessly has a one-night stand and becomes pregnant. She neither wants a baby nor is in a position to be able to raise one. Should she be stopped from having an abortion as soon as possible? You could say that if she took the pregnancy to term and gave the baby up for adoption, and this was generally the norm, then people wouldn't be so careless about having unprotected sex in the first place.

However, there will always be some women who will seek abortions illegally, or even try to do it themselves. This has always gone on. And I do believe, as Jill said, that women need to have some control over their bodies. Regardless of whether you personally see it as being morally wrong, those women need to be given the right to have an abortion safely and legally. Maybe it's distasteful, but I think it needs to be there as an option, if otherwise the woman is going to go grab a coathanger and scar her insides and possibly make herself very poorly. You canot deny that this happens, and would happen if abortion were completely banned, and we're talking about a woman's life and wellbeing, surely that counts for as much as a baby's. That includes being forced to carry a baby to term if she has been raped. Some women may want to have the baby anyway. I imagine most would not. To force them to carry to term is to further the abuse that began with the rape.

Also, if a woman's life is at risk, she needs to be given the choice to have an abortion. If the baby is certain to be born with severe handicaps and is not expected to live long, she should also be given that choice. I think there are some cases where it would be unkind to both mother and baby to be forced to do otherwise, no matter how much someone values life. Sometimes if you truly do value life, you accept that there's a time for it to end. (Oh goodness, we'll be talking euthanasia here next . . . when you talk about God and morality you end up talking about everything don't you.)

I guess that's where I stand right now then. I think abortions ought to be restricted in certain ways, and that there should be a societal norm where it's preferable to either give a baby up for adoption, or to just take as much care as possible to ensure that unwanted pregnancies don't happen in the first place. But the option does need to be there, and the state has no right to tell women what to do with their bodies. Plenty of religions think they have the right, thank goodness the law as it is today is more objective.