…an act of divine grace to remove the stain of original sin from her soul (thus making her a fit vessel to carry God made manifest in human flesh within her womb)…

Or maybe it’s because we’re slowly evolving from climbing animals to standing animals and also we’re big brained animals so a woman’s pelvis is too small and a baby’s head is too big.
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But naturally there’s absolutely no evidence for evolution. Just read Ann Coulter. She knows man. She knows how to make money being an arsehole.

While Zoe does smell and feel lovely, I’d be very careful here Adrien. Remember the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Mongols, Moghuls and Brits. They all ended up becoming the culture they initially fought against.

…an act of divine grace to remove the stain of original sin from her soul (thus making her a fit vessel to carry God made manifest in human flesh within her womb)…

And so without the original sin clogging up the phonelines, did Mary have a painless childbirth, sexual desire, and was she equal to men? (Remembering punishments from the top of my head)

Come and have a cuddle, Adrien.

OK now I intend to ignore any further comments on the late term red herring (let’s see how far I get with that good intention! )

Also, tickets are now on sale for the auto-da-fe carnival this Sunday. Admission price gets you an illustrated colour program printed in Latin with free online translation facilities, covered seating with CCTV of the incinerations, full tote and bookie facilities for taking bets on the ducking pond, free soft drinks and sandwiches for all patrons, a corporate marquee for all donations of $100 or greater to Opus Dei, and drinks with the Pope at the social club after we burn the last witch.

I should add, Helen, that you are absolutely right that the pro-lifers use late-term abortions as a emotional button to press whenever the issue of abortion arises.

The focus on late-term abortions is therefore a result of a few factors: (1) genuine ethical issues about which abortions are morally justifiable within a framework that generally accepts a woman’s right to choose (ie. the legitimate end of the debate), (2) pro-lifer attempts to draw the line as close to conception as possible, on preventative grounds (which attempts are also partly driven by the realists who, as you say, know they’ve lost the war and who therefore choose to participate in narrower terms), and (3) the socio-politcal strategy of pro-lifers which, owing to the understandable hesitance on the part of many to allow the killing of relatively more fully formed humans, zeroes in on the few edge cases which are, to put it blunty, ickier (note this is merely a normative statement).

BBB

I think when it comes to rights, especially the balancing of rights of between two entities (for want of a better word) then it does need to be legislated. At the very least if you are going to start recognising a foetus as having some rights at a particular stage of development before birth then they need to have an independent advocate.

The following week’s edition included a correction from Bob to the effect that, of course, God did not become manifest in human flesh on the first Christmas Day, but approximately nine months earlier when He was immaculately conceived.

Tch. Bob didn’t even get his theology right. Pius IX pronounced that Mary was immaculately conceivedconception was immaculate, not through any aspect of the progenitive behaviour of her parents, but as an act of divine grace to remove the stain of original sin from her soul (thus making her a fit vessel to carry God made manifest in human flesh within her womb). God made manifest in human flesh didn’t need to be immaculately conceived, as He was already free from original sin.

Catholic Encyclopaedia: Immaculate Conception.

Which reminds me of a (very old) joke.

http://carolynesphotos.spaces.live.com/

Once upon a time in a place where little sperms grow, there was a super jock sperm who spent all his time working out. He did things like lifting weights and running, his most important duty. All the other sperm were very curious about his pastimes.

“Why do you keep working out all the time,” they asked.

“Well,” he said, “Of all us sperms, only one of us is going to make it to the egg. And that is going to be me.” Well, the other sperms just floated around waiting for the day to cum (Pardon the expression). And it did, and they were off! All those sperms racing along and far out in front of them was the super jock sperm, racing so fast and so hard (HaHa) that they couldn’t see him any more, but they still kept cumming.

Alas, then, away in the distance, they heard a loud piercing scream. They still kept cumming though.

And then very shortly the super sperm appeared, screaming with all his might, “Go back, Go Back! IT’S A BLOW JOB!”

She’s not supposed to have a twinkle. Women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex that’s why many anti-abortionist think it should be banned, as punishment for those harlots who do enjoy it.

And girls, if you really want to be sure you DON’T enjoy your procreating - lie back and think of Costello.

… if you take the common vulgar-Catholic argument about hormonal contraception being equivalent to abortion, intention and planning on the part of the parents would have to form part of the question of when the soul begins to exist.

Liam, that is scary, now that you mention it, and its implications are worse. A popular saying among my parents’ generation was ‘That happened before you were even a twinkle in your father’s eye.’ So, does life begin before or after the twinkle?

And what about my mother’s eye, huh? Huh?

*Huffs*

As if I was totally unaware of the fact that 24 weeks+ is more controversial, DD. What I am saying is, those who oppose abortion constantly frame it in terms of late term abortion, when in fact it is a relatively rare case and the vast majority of women have them in the first trimester. The legislation on the table, if it’s allowed to go through without watering-down with clauses requiring lengthy or multiple “counselling” sessions, will reduce second trimester abortions due to them not being unnecessarily delayed.

As BBB points out, it could be that they think they’ve lost the war around abortion per se so they’re focusing on the later terms, however, I constantly see “abortion” conflated with “late term abortion” all over the press so I’m worried that the social conservatives in the Vic parliament will hedge the legislation about with obfuscatory and delaying requirements for “counselling” (in some cases with a religious “pregnancy counselling” organisation that’s not revealiing itself as such.)

Do virgins have to bake the God-bun in the oven for nine months before it’s properly cooked, like normal women do?

There is, surely, no greater question at the intersection of theology and obstetrics.

Yes there is that, but there’s another reason late term abortions get more focus. I think it’s thornier ethical issues, not just aesthetic reactions.

If you hold that it is sentience which makes us human and that we should try hard to avoid killing humans then we have to decide in what circumstances “sentience” begins. Given the uncertainties some would argue the rules should be conservative. But absent this possible sentience then the woman’s right to control her own body trumps other objections.

Note, though, this is quite different from the idea that it is having a “soul” that makes us human and that this mystical ghost in the machine is created when a haploid cell becomes diploid. That view makes all abortions problematic, whereas the sentience view only makes some late term ones so.