"...as he prohibited federal funding of embryo-destructive stem-cell research, Bush repeated, "I think life begins at conception." Referring to pre-implantation embryos, Bush wrote that "it is unethical to end life," even to save the lives of others."

But it apparently is perfectly ethical to end life in a war with questionable (at best) ties to countries that may (or may not) house terrorist organizations, or may (or may not) have weapons of mass destruction, or may (or may not) pose any threat whatsoever to America...

...just so long as it saves the lives of others.

Or not.

Not to mention, he had absolutely no problem, as governor of Texas, signing off on death row inmates being executed on a regular basis.

You could also read from that quote of his that he does not support abortion even to save the life of a mother during a dangerous pregnancy. Lovely. I guess my life is worth less to him (and McCain for that matter) than some tiny egg.

*yawn* b0nnylass, I suppose I could take that quote more seriously if you were against abortion, because your argument can be shot right back at you. You think its wrong to kill people who are a threat to society, and who have committed crime, but you think its perfectly OK to kill an unborn baby who had nothing to do with its own creation....

b0nnylass isn't the one who classified a possibly fertilized egg as an unborn baby or a human life. In her argument, she's comparing an adult (or, barely adult, in the case of some prisoners) to"a tiny egg." You may not agree with her, but, rebutting a willful misreading isn't exactly all that convincing (or intellectually honest) either.

People who are truly pro-life do not support the death penalty.

To them it's wrong for the state to end a life. Period.

You can't have it both ways. Murder is murder.

Patron, you're confused again. Sigh. The quote is Bush's, not mine, so it's his views you should be considering when evaluating the 'seriousness' of the quote. Duh.

I never expressed an opinion about the death penalty. You made that up. Again, if Bush thinks it's wrong to take a life, he should have a problem with the death penalty. How are my views relevant to that observation?

Hell yes, I am for abortion to save the life or health of a mother. Should I be apologizing for that?? I'm a woman, and that issue could someday have a profound impact on my life. The problem with 100% pro-lifers is, you have to be ok with killing one way or another. If you are against all abortions under all circumstances, then you have to accept that you're ok with killing the pregnant mother occasionally. What about ectopic pregnancy, when the fetus has no chance to grow to maturity? In your warped logic, is it better to allow two deaths than to deliberately end one life?

I'll answer for him: "Why of COURSE it's better to allow two deaths - because as everyone (that's a Republican) a woman's life is worth NOTHING. You were made as an afterthought anyway, from a bit of rib-bone! AND, you're responsible for tempting Adam and getting men kicked out of Paradise, you evil, brazen hussy!!!"

There - did I get it about right? Did I capture the right Republican "tone"?

Well Dilley2222, I don't consider murderers, especially those that murder multiple times to be human, so your the one bringing the classification of human into that argument. Sorry once you kill somebody for no cause your no longer human, your just an animal, and as we all know violent animals are put to sleep. A fetus has committed no crime, it was killed because of the carelessness of other humans who created it. Take that out of context all you want, if we are into classifying certain stages of development as human or non-human, we should be able to say that certain crimes take away your humanity, is all a slippery slope, that much I will admit, if you support one you should support the other, either way your saying life is not sacred, and once you've made that decision its just a matter of making artificial lines that determine what life is allowed to be considered sacred and what life is not.

b0nnylass, I have no problem saying that Bush is a moron in his views, I am simply stating that if you support one you might as well support the other one. A murderer is no longer human in my eyes, and should be put to death like a violent dog. Especially when that murderer has committed more than one murder. Its all a slippery slope, if you support abortion by default you support the idea that life is not sacred, thus you open the door for executions. If you support the death penalty you are by default opening the door to abortion, because you have also admitted that human life has no value. Its that simple, if you support one, by default you support the other.

patron, there are a lot of holes in your argument(s). I never asked you to call Bush a moron, I just pointed out that you were mistaken in trying to match someone else's quote with my values. That made no sense.

I hate to point out the glaringly obvious but it seems to be necessary: you say life is sacred. You say ending a life is always wrong. Yet you say murderers should be put to death...does that mean you support the death penalty? Which makes you, by your own definition and 'by default' ok with abortion? WTF? You just cancelled out your own beliefs about life, and frankly I don't know what your point is.

A fetus has committed no crime, it was killed because of the carelessness of other humans who created it.

Again, not all abortions are due to carelessness. Rape is an obvious example. And are you under the impression that 'carelessness' causes complications in pregnancies, such as ectopics? Your medical knowledge is as lacking as your logic, I'd say.

I'm very curious to see a straight-forward answer from a pro-lifer about the kind of ectopic pregnancy b0nnylass brings up. If the fetus will not fully develop and will eventually kill the mother, is an abortion still wrong? Anti-abortionists, what are your views on this?

Picro, I'll take a shot at it. It is the principle of the double effect. In the ectopic pregnancy example, if the medical remedy is to remove the tube, a) removal of the tube to cure illness/disease is morally neutral, and b) the death of the fetus is not the intended result, but an unavoidable consequence of the procedure, it is morally permissible under the principle of double effect. Similarly, with uterine cancer, cancer drugs will eliminate the cancer, but be fatal to fetus - - acceptable under double effect. I'm not being terribly precise here, and double effect analysis does require some precision, but that's basically the idea, I think.

A loophole, eh? Kidding. Thanks for the explanation, NFP Guy, and I can see where you're coming from with the 'double effect' principle. However it appears to raise additional moral questions you may or may not have considered. I found the following on a health site:

An early ectopic pregnancy can sometimes be treated with an injection of methotrexate, which stops the growth of the embryo.

However, the pregnancy may sometimes be removed using laparoscopy, a less invasive surgical procedure. The surgeon makes small incisions in the lower abdomen and then inserts a tiny video camera and instruments through these incisions. The ectopic pregnancy is then surgically removed and any damaged organs are repaired or removed.

As you can see, ectopic pregnancies treated at an early stage can be done with an injection that apparently harms nothing but the embryo. From your explanation above, it seems you would find this procedure to be immoral, even though it would give the woman a better chance at health and fertility in the future. Would you honestly say a woman in this position should willingly opt to have her tube removed unnecessarily, simply to fall under the category of moral neutrality? I find that view morally repugnant and ethically unconscionable, frankly. Do you have another loophole up your sleeve for this scenario? I hope so.

b0nny, actually I am aware of it and I can see both sides of it. Again, one is in one sense not really intending the death of the fetus, in the sense that its removal is incident to repairing the damaged tube, but it is also hard to reconcile the direct intent to only remove the fetus. As I mentioned in my first post, double effect application really has to be very precise in its terms. Anyway, I've thought about it but haven't reached a definitive conclusion; I'd like to read more about it from different moral thelogians to hear any different approaches. As far as I'm aware, RCC has not spoken, definitively (for Catholics) or otherwise, about this procedure.

Sometimes I think you need to rely on your own sense of decency, not on someone else's convoluted logic. Why on earth would you cause harm to a woman (by allowing her tube to be damaged or removed) when you could avoid it in the first place through a simpler and safer procedure? The result is the same either way: the fetus will not live. Nor will the fetus live if no medical action is taken. It is illogical, immoral, and damn near insane not to treat a woman for an ectopic pregnancy in the safest means available. Even if one plays by the Catholic rules, couldn't you say the intent of removing the fetus is primarily to save the fallopian tube and the woman's life? Why would you have to wait until the tube has been damaged, when you know with 100% certainty the tube will be damaged if no action is taken?