Tresy Kilbourne wrote:



>Nice to find us agreeing, Bill. (I think that would actually be the typical
>case in a less contentious environment.)

Probably not representative. Abortion is a "motherhood" issue. ;-)

> As for my "slip," I merely meant to
>point out that, based on their own avowed policies, such a conclusion would
>be inescapable for anti-choicers. Soliciting murder is a capital offense in
>this country--or more precisely, a death-penalty-eligible offense. Sauce for
>the goose, etc. But *I* certainly don't support the death penalty. I do
>support consistent application of the laws, though (one of the problems
>with the death penalty, as we all know).

I saw a documentary a couple of days ago about a pharmacist in Utah who
only got 8 months (less parole) for soliciting a hit-man to murder his
wife. (Luckily for her the hit-man turned out to be an undercover cop.) Of
course she is a confessed adulteress, so no doubt that "sin" weighed
heavily of the mind of the court. But it demonstrates clearly that crime
and punishment are essentially a political matter. Less so perhaps in
jurisdictions where judges have tenure rather than being political
appoinments as they are in the US, but the law everywhere is always
tempered by the political disposition of the population.

Which is the main problem with the death penalty. It is not and cannot be
consistently applied. Every state conducted execution is a politically
motivated killing in the final analysis, demeaning our whole human society.
Killing people for political reasons is so utterly obscene that it turns my
stomach to think about it. I can't help but feel that a population which
tolerates it are little more than barbarians. I would put it on the same
moral plane as abortions ordered by the state.

But at least the Chinese state is consistent, it makes no pretense about
respecting human life. They can be said to be barbarians with a moral code.

Barbarians just have a different moral code. Hypocrites, such as those who
oppose abortion but support the death penalty, cannot be said to have *any*
moral code in a true sense.

>While we on the subject of abortion jurisprudence, it might interest fellow
>US citizens to know, if they didn't already, that even our conservative
>Supreme Court rejects the idea of personhood for the fetus, by a very
>substantial margin. On their last major statement on the subject, only 2
>Justices--the Catholic Scalia, and his mini-Me, Clarence Thomas--

"Mini-me", cute. Not as catchy as referring to Microsoft as the "Borg"
though. Where did that last one come from, you're the only one I've seen
use it?

>adopted the view that a fetus is a person entitled to due process under
>the >14th Amendment. That makes it 7-2 against the "pro-life" position.
>The >reason the
>votes on abortion restrictions is so much closer is that 2-3 other Justices
>base their reasoning ON Roe v. Wade's reasoning regarding reasonableness of
>restrictions in the third trimester, not on overturning it. Not that that
>should make anyone complacent. But it does give the lie to alot of the
>anti-choice rhetoric about "personhood."

Abortion is not a very controversial issue in Australia, as I see it.
Though there is occasionally some whining from the catholic lobby about
public funding of abortions through the Medicare system. What about other
jurisdictions?

Bill bartlett
Bracknell tas