---a rather incoherent comparison? no one, save the most fanatical Zionist would argue that the murder of a Palestinian is a murder of a human being and should be punished as such. As a matter of fact, it is safe to say that Israel has laws that encode the act of murdering any already born person on Israeli soil as an act of murder. However, there is wide disagreement on the issue of whether or not an abortion is 'murder' and very little agreement with the proposition that it should be punished as capital one murder (which is all it could possibly be after all, the planned and carried out murder of an innocent person, eh?)
---That seems clear enough that many defenders of abortion as ethical have been forced to argue that abortion doesn't end a human life
--utterly off topic. the reasoning is quite simple actually. If you ask the average person if there should be a heavy punishment for the crime of murder, they will say yes there should be. That is across religious and non-religious. They will disagree on the laws, but for persons born who are murdered, they agree there should be x,y, and z types of classifications and x,y, and z types of punishment.
Now, take the same group of people and ask them if they believe that abortion should be considered, legally, murder. you will find some agreement until you get to , 'should people who commit this act of murder be charged with murder?' then you will find lots of opposition. the idea is, of course, ludicrous. think of all the christian republican women who would be on death row (if we support the death penalty for murder) or in jail for long terms. then think of all the women who would go abroad to commit murder, come back, and not be punished for committing murder of an American citizen. Or think of the many foreigners who commit this act of murder in the US in jail or death row for committing murder.....
only a religious fanatic could agree that such policy would be desirable, let alone feasible. yet it is the only logical conclusion from the proposition, "abortion is murder".
in a secular country we have no choice but to accept that different people have very different opinions about whether or not an abortion is an act of murder and therefore it is impossible to legislate laws restricting abortion as an act of murder. It is possible in a religious state to do so, indeed it is not at all uncommon. But in a secular state, the proposition is utterly irrational. The same cannot be said about prosecuting the murder of a born person as 'murder'. On that you find nearly unanimous agreement, the murder of a born person is a murder and should (as we would expect from a coherent legal system) be punished as a crime of murder.
Ultimately that is the only issue at hand and the anti-choice movement is keenly aware of this. The rest is a cover for this reality, ideology as it were.
steve
. --CGE