"...except in the case of rape or incest."

Could you substantiate that from Missouri law, please? I'm asking you for the specific statutory language that allows people to mug you without penalty in East St. Louis at 3 am. Under the law those people are objectively, legally mistaken. They're free to hold their own opinion on the subject but they have no right to demand that others act as though they hold the same view. Maybe I live there. Why should I be expected to stay away from my home? Your position is ridiculous. If not you, then who? No one else is under an obligation to solve the problems with your position. If your position is untenable and indefensible, it's intellectually dishonest of you to maintain it. You're factually wrong. Meaningless and irrelevant. One in three women have had at least one abortion, and there's no factual basis for assuming this will cease to be true if abortion is made illegal. Therefore your plan turns one out of every three women into criminals.How will you punish these illegal abortions, CS? Jail time? You've argued that abortion kills a person; since the abortion is certainly premeditated that's a charge of third-degree murder, at least.Like I said nobody else is under an obligation to untangle the contradictions in your own position. It's your job to either do so or abandon an untenable position, if your desire is to be intellectually honest.

Because rape victims are blameless, but sluts should not be allowed to escape their penance?

The problem here is that CS thinks that making abortion illegal will make people think that abortion is wrong; but that's irrelevant. Even the people who think abortion is wrong still get abortions.Abortion clinic workers have a lot of stories about seeing a pro-lifer protesting out in front of the clinic, and then, one day, sneaking in the back with her daughter to get her an abortion. (They're usually rude about it too, as though they deserve special treatment for deigning to take advantage of the services the clinic offers.)The next day she's back out there in front of the clinic. Almost one-third of women who get an abortion will answer in the affirmative if asked if they truly believe that they're murdering their child - but they do it anyway.You're right about the timelessness of abortion. Even the Bible offers a recipe for an orally-administered abortifacet (but like much of the Bible, it doesn't actually work.)

The position you're defending is that sluts should be punished.

Oh, I know. I just summed up your position using concise and plain language. You were very careful to present your position in as guarded terms as possible, but the meaning came through very clearly. Why else would you so adamantly oppose abortion to the extent that you would make one-third of all women criminals, yet be oh-so-careful to avoid an undue burden on those who were impregnated not by an act of sex they had for pleasure but during a sexual assault?

Thousands? From my back of the envelope, it's more like 50 million. (That's one third of the female population of the US.)

But why do you believe that would be true for the victim of a rape, and not true for a single woman whose contraception inexplicably failed? Well, we've already established that the majority of abortions are the result of contraception failure. Why do you believe that the woman is responsible? From where I see it, she was responsible by choosing to use contraception, and that's the end of the responsibility. If anyone should be obligated to provide for the child it should be the manufacturer of the faulty contraception, don't you think?

Yeah, and that's why nobody ever downloads mp3's or movies from the Internet. Wait, what was that sound?Never mind - it was just my iPod spontaneously ceasing to exist.

So why is that the woman's fault, and not the fault of the manufacturer who makes prophylactics with under 100% effectiveness?And remember - no neighborhood is 100% effective at not having rapists in it. Shouldn't rape victims be saddled with the consequence of choosing to leave the house? The fact that we use contraception would seem to indicate that we do have regard for the possibility of pregnancy. I don't know how we could reasonably be expected to be more careful. If abortion is made illegal in MO, and we suddenly needed one, we'd either go to another state or break the law.Not getting an abortion in that situation just isn't an option. How do you figure she was more irresponsible? She was using contraception. That's being responsible. It's no more irresponsible than the woman who left the home and was raped. You shouldn't leave the house if you're not prepared to get raped? No, they are prepared. They're prepared to use contraception and prepared to get an abortion if that doesn't work. How is that irresponsible?

From the stats I've seen, it's one out of every three individual women who will have at least one abortion in their lifetime.

I don't believe that they legitimately did so; it's inherently contradictory to send slaves to fight for a democracy. And, of course, abortion was once illegal in every state in the country. Slavery was once legal. History doesn't seem to be much of a guide in regards to how a government should respect individual body sovereignty.So, no. I believe that body autonomy trumps all. Does it have to? I guess you're free to institute a government where the autonomy of your body can be secondary to the concerns of others; but why you would want to live where your extra kidney or some of your liver or a lung could be appropriated at any time, with you bearing all the risks of surgery, is beyond me. I don't know if it's such a tragedy. It's heartbreaking for the family, of course, but for the newborn? Again we're talking about the cessation of a being that isn't even aware that it is alive.The great problem with death, of course, is that we can imagine it coming. For a being who cannot - who cannot even appreciate the concepts of being alive or being dead - it's not such a big deal. That's why abortion is the far greater mercy in so many situations.