[Professor S]

The real question that needs to be decided is "When does life begin?" Once that question is answered, the rest of the questions become irrelevant.

If human life begins at conception, it doesn't matter if the mother was raped, a life is a life despite its origins. Also you can't get an abortion even the day afte becoming pregnant.

If human life begins at birth, then you can end the pregnancy at any point before the child exits the womb, making partial birth abortion morally and legally acceptable.

The problem is the real answer lies somewhere in between those examples, and that is where we may never find an answer.

Personally, I find it depressing that as I society when we can't define when a human life begin, we default to "kill it". In my mind, that ideology has bled out into other issues, such as the Terry Schiavo case. We couldn't determine whether or not she was truly living, and even her family disputed the case, but not knowing we defaulted to "kill her".

That is a depressing state of affairs.