It is no secret that Wild Banshee is extremely committed to the pro-life position. I believe that life begins at conception and that there really is no logical, medically supportable starting point for life other than conception. However, last night, I had an interesting discussion with a pro-choice friend of mine.
She took the position that there was certainly life at conception but that it was something less than a full human life until "quickening." However, she did not claim that she was able to determine exactly what that meant. My response to that is: When in doubt, protect the life. If I am wrong, extra people get to live. If she is wrong, extra people are killed. It seems to me that it is clearly better to err in my direction.
The most interesting part of the discussion was when my friend offered a comparison between abortion and war. She said that she thinks abortion, like war, is a terrible thing to be avoided at all costs. However, she believed that there were circumstances where both war and abortion might be a necessary evil. For this reason, she believed that abortion should remain a legal choice for women. I think this might be a valid comparison in theory. However, in actual practice, I believe that there really are factual situations where the criteria for a just war are met. In contrast, I cannot come up with a factual situation where "just war" type of circumstances exist that would justify the killing of an unborn child. Nonetheless, it was an interesting line of thought.
