the abortion debate as conducted in america has mystified me for years. i'll just say two things: a) i favor abortion rights; and b) there is no honest, morally coherent way to deny that abortion is killing. (re: Doug's "Doesn't the concept of birth mean anything to you?" why should it? how can the developmental portion of life that occurs inside the womb be any less "life" than the developmental portion of life that occurs outside? that's rather like shooting a four-year-old and claiming it wasn't killing cuz he wasn't yet capable of abstract reasoning.)
i'll leave the elaboration to those who care more about this issue, but in sum what strikes me is this: what is needed is not better sophistry in defining where life begins, but a reckoning with the fact that we simply do not value human life so deeply or unconditionally as we say we do.
As for capital punishment, i oppose not because i think "killing is always wrong," but because i think "killing *by the state* is wrong."