And really, the 'persuasion' is likely to be more effective on the demand side than the 'supply' side of abortion. I think most abortionists are probably pretty dug in, and a large number of women (and their male partners) who participate in abortions are too- but the latter is an everchanging group and those who face the decision for the first time might reconsider if they have other options.

I guess in a sense, to get back to your terrorism analogy, the persuasion that I see as possible (and really, the least worst option under the circumstances) is more like trying to encourage moderate Muslims to help the younger generation accept an anti-Islamist stance, and to make some direct overtures to encourage that as well.

That said, I think that in some cases persuasion is inadequate. Try persuading al-Qaeda to abandon terrorism. Tell Hitler it's really a bad thing to exterminate the Jews. Wave signs. Show them pictures of their victims. Write angry letters to the editor. Stage a demonstration (in the former case, that would be more like a target.) They're not going to buy it, and while you work to change their convictions, they murder innocents, and will continue to do so until forcibly stopped. So all right, I concede that not personally intervening doesn't cap the strength of your feelings on the subject, but if you go so far as to condemn people who do kill abortionists, then you're putting all your eggs in the persuasion basket.

Is that even going to work? You're trading two immediate effects (smaller number of abortionists, plus a disincentive for anyone else to become one) for a long-term solution which might not even happen, especially given that you (unless I horribly misread your earlier comment) think a single cell qualifies as a person. That's quite the hurdle for anyone who thinks that, say, sentience is prerequisite for personhood.

Let's back up and look at your logic. Apparently you believe that any time a horrible injustice is occurring, people of good conscience have to use any means possible to stop it, including violence and murder of the perpetrators. There's no other way to interpret your statements, because you claim to know that I'm not serious in my belief that abortion is murder unless I demonstrate that belief by killing abortionists or supporting those who do.

OK, so let's see. When are you travelling to Darfur to try to stop the genocide? Or to Thailand to kill the perpetrators of enslavement of children for the sex trade?

What? You're not? Oh, I guess you're not as opposed to genocide or to sexual enslavement of children as you think you are.

I'd get my gun. That you do not implies either that you're not as pro-life as you think you are, or you have no objections to mass murder as long as it's legal.

Actually it's option C- that I'm not you, and I can comprehend that a lot of people who commit this murder don't actually believe that it's murder even though I'm convicted of that fact. Murdering those people would not advance the goal, but working to change people's convictions is the only thing that can possibly do so.

It's not that I would say you're 'nobody', but I'm in the 'actions speak louder than words' camp. I don't have access to your mind, so I have to find some way to reconcile the claim that you're a person from conception with the fact that you don't seem terribly upset at the thought of tens of millions of 'persons' being murdered. I don't know about you, but if the murder of born persons was legal I wouldn't “work to prevent murders”, I'd get my gun. That you do not implies either that you're not as pro-life as you think you are, or you have no objections to mass murder as long as it's legal.

If what you say is correct, Jazz (and I do think you have a point), then what does that say about our society? That we can force an issue down the road long enough so that we get past the point where we can consider the moral implications? Because we've gone so far with acceptance of IVF embryos being destroyed, we're supposed to now say that everyone has to accept abortion as a given? That's pretty horrific, in it's implications for the chilling effect on ethics in general, as far as I'm concerned.

Amanda and CStanley's argument heads into territory that I tried very hard to avoid. Prosecuting women for having a clearly unintentional miscarriage flies well past silly and into straw-man territory. Trying to prove that a woman *intentionally* tried to force a miscarriage, while I know it has happened, would also be a legal nightmare even for the most strident pro-lifer.

My original question about the IV fertilization clinics, though, still seems to stand on its own merit. The law, as worded, would certainly leave open the possibility of fertility doctors being open to murder charges for discarding fertilized embryos which the parents no longer want. Ed Morrissey updated his post which I linked to after I wrote it and mentioned that some pro-lifers might see that as being “a feature rather than a bug.” I have to wonder if the pro-life warriors really want to take the battle that far. The political, legal and social ramifications are all mind boggling and the argument looks like a non-starter to me.

But your second question is just silly. People die all the time and we have no problem determining whether or not the circumstances of those deaths should result in criminal charges.

That's a fair point — peoples' view of what is common sensical is not always going to coincide. But that's why we have democracy. What seems perfectly natural to us may seem absolutely barbaric to our descendants a century hence.

I mentioned equal protection in that context merely because it's the only thing I could think of then. There are, I'm sure other Constitutional provisions that do have the effect of limiting rights, I just don't know the ins and outs of the Constitution well enough to be able to say what they might be with certainty. All I can say is that a provision limiting citizenship to those born or naturalised in the US simply doesn't speak to the question of whether states can grant additional rights on par with state citizens' rights to people who aren't citizens of the US. At least under state law — federal law will tend to look to federal sources for their definitions.

And what happens to a woman who miscarries? If the embryo is a protected, recognized human life, than isn't miscarriage the equivalent of negligent homicide or manslaughter?

Claiming a dependent as a tax deduction isn't a right- the state can determine when that exemption begins in any way it sees fit.

And as long as we're talking about potential inconsistencies if a fetus was granted full human rights, what about the inconsistencies as they currently stand? We have laws in many states now which allow prosecution for homicide if a fetus is killed in connection with a violent crime perpetrated against the mother. That's completely inconsistent with the idea that a licensed physician is permitted to take the same life, if the mother requests it.

I think we have to come to terms with the fact that pregnancy is a unique situation, so some inconsistencies will exist no matter what we decide.

Call me 'nobody', I guess.

And I have no idea how some people can rationalize the dispensation of petri dish embryos to the trashbin if they oppose abortion- it makes no sense and those people are not being consistent, presumably because they're making an emotional rationalization since they pity infertile couples. Had we never opened Pandora's box of IVF, it would have been far better to solve the problem of infertility with adoption (which also helps solve the dilemma of the burden of unplanned pregnancy for women.) In both cases, society has chosen the easy way out instead of the higher moral ground.

I am almost coming around to Elrod's stated position though, that it really is far more important to try to prevent abortions by preventing pregnancies and providing better solutions for women who have become pregnant, but I still can't really accept that the law shouldn't also reflect the correct moral position. If murder of born persons was legal, I'd want to simultaneously work to prevent murders as well as advocating for a change in the law.

We can at least partially agree. The constitution intends to be the exclusive guarantor of the minimum rights of citizens. I agree that it does not seek, nor should it intend, to be a comprehensive listing of all the rights of citizens, but that speaks to the original purpose of the document, doesn't it? The bill of rights was not intended to be a tool for the Federal Government to use in restricting the rights of citizens, it's an insurance policy for the citizens to insure that their fundamental rights would never be taken away by an ambitious and over reaching Federal government. The states can assign various rights to farm animals and pets. (As they should, and indeed have.) But that's not part of the function of the constitution.

Of course, this unfortunately leads us back to the original question. How is our track record when it comes to “equal protection and common sense” in courts of law? Let's say for a moment that a state can declare the unborn to be persons with full rights. Can couples claim their six week old fetus as a dependent on their taxes? I don't know. I still keep coming back full circle on the legal ramifications to the idea that your previously mentioned “equal protection and common sense” should be exactly what stops us from assigning full rights to the unborn. To go any further in a defense of the idea, at least for me, jumps the line from legal possibilities to moral and religious questions where we would likely part company as I don't find those to be questions for the government to answer. I must say, though, you certainly provide a lot of food for thought.

State citizenship still exists (in addition to federal or “national” citizenship, which was made explicit after the Civil War). States may have their own definition of citizenship and personhood* and it may apply before the act of being born (which, in fact, is the basis for settling any issue of if or when a baby not born yet, or a fetus, is a legal object, and what rights a developing child and a fetus may have). Note that existing laws establish the fact of the fetus's or developing child's presence and legal person-hood or “object-hood” to some extent; that is why actions that cause harm to or loss of a fetus or developing child now are in laws are crimes in a number of instances, which establish the fetuses or developing babies as _something_ legally and otherwise. Defenders of the Roe activism are annhilated by the facts. The existing state laws governing abortion are the correct laws that should be applied currently. I'm curious, but not confident, about some kind of consensus being established someday about abortion and replacement of Roe, other illegitimate judicial activism, and mindless leftist militance with reason and legitimacy in the courts.

* and other states are obliged to recognize and respect these definitions — “full faith and credit”

It does sound right to me that states can extend generous rights to non-citizens. I don't think they can exceed the rights granted by citizens, because that would probably implicate a national origin equal protection concern. But I think they can certainly equal them. Equal protection and common sense would tend to limit the rights that can be granted. I don't think the Constitution is or intends to be the exclusive source of rights.

I'm not asking that in a sarcastic fashion. Reading your arguments, perhaps there is no constitutional barrier to extending the rights on the unborn or the non-citizen to equal or even exceed the rights assured to citizens. Or is there? I mean, does that sound right to you? Again, we seem to be focusing too much on the specifics of abortion here. Can ND pass a law saying that some class of people not typically included in the above have “all the rights” as any citizen? Not just the right to life, liberty, etc. but “ALL the rights?” If we're to follow your line of thinking, then there is virtually no right of any sort which an individual state couldn't assign to anyone for any reason.

Let's also ask where, exactly, the Incorporation Doctrine plays into this question. Some of the rights which have been considered to be “fundamental rights” by the SCOTUS, as detailed in some but not all of the Bill of Rights are mandatory for the states, but others, such as the second amendment, are not. But just because some are not mandatory, that doesn't mean that the states can not assign them as they see fit.

If you allow ND to assign “all the rights” to a person “not born” or not a citizen, etc. what sort of door are we opening for additional unintended consequences? Again, you do raise interesting questions, but they just seem to fail in the court of common sense. (Not that “common sense” has ever stopped courts from doing things, of course.)

Furthermore, the rights you are talking about are only the privileges and immunities of US citizens. The other rights in the 14th amendment — life, liberty, property, equal protection — are all guaranteed to all persons without restriction on birth or naturalisation. It's just not accurate to say that the rights of the 14th Amendment apply only to “all persons born [in the United States].”

The 14th amendment doesn't say that you can murder people who are not citizens with impunity or anything of the sort. What it DOES define is who has the specified rights. And it does specifically say that “all persons born” have them. On that strange technicality a judge could, particularly if they would like to dodge an comfortable issue, say that the law fails the smell test because it is in direct contradiction to the first sentence of the 14th. That's why it's a technicality. They don't even need to look at the issue of abortion or murder to shoot it down.

Many of those rulings are pets of the right, btw.