Kevin g fumes: Excuse me but, I believe the child will be dependent upon an adult for years to come for its survival but that doesn't mean we can extinguish its life on a whim.

Do you really think it's on a whim? No thought at all goes into it? That it's somehow fun for anyone involved?

I think just the opposite - that unwanted pregnancies as often as not induce deep and reflecting thought. What is really more whimsical - an unmarried teenager with no job, little education and no more than gas money in the bank making the commitment to have a child, or that same person realizing that there is no way that she is prepared and able to be a good mother at this time.

No law can ever stop abortions. It can make them much more expensive so that the very people that, for economic reasons, are not prepared for the incredible commitment of time and money that it takes to raise a child. It can also make them much more dangerous - after all it only takes a metal clothes hanger or some foul mix of chemicals to terminate the pregnancy.

The wealthy will always be able to get safe abortions. There will remain at least some bastions on earth where one with the financial resources can jet off to. And if not, good old capitalism will always meet that market demand.

An unwanted pregnancy often destroys two or even three lives. There's the most typically young and still hopefully striving mother, that because of one mistake or contraceptive failure with a loaded penis find no alternative but to drop out of school, postpone their career aspirations, or are forced into an unwanted permanent relationship with the sperm provider. The father, if he has the moral backbone (or because of some legal remedy), is suddenly made the bread winner for a family. But the biggest loser is the fertilized egg that matures into a fetus and finally a living and breathing baby. Born far too often into an unloving life wrought with poor economic conditions and with much public scorn, in the case of illegitimate births or because of the parents age, from the very sort of people that insisted that the mother proceed with the pregnancy.

But my difference in philosophy could all come back to one simple dividing line: forcing an adult to ensure the survival of a baby for years does not alone meet my distinction of life. Life requires love, to be wanted, to have possibilities. Existence does not.