I hate to add fuel to the fire, but it's always been self-evident to me that the further back into pregnancy you postulate the beginning of personhood (and thus the point where abortion becomes murder), the more post-birth non-human creatures will qualify for personhood by whatever objective measurements and requirements you attempt to define. Thus, until someone can plop a soul onto the table for objective measurement of its own, and say "This is what makes us different from every other animal on the planet", it also seems self-evident to me that this is ultimately a case of a religious belief attempting to elbow its way into law. Outside of throwing separation of church and state out the window, as so many conservative Christian groups would like to do, I think that the best we can do is make a good-faith determination of when a fetus becomes a sapient being, and limit abortion to before that point by a generous margin. Otherwise we get to a point where we have to include worms and amoeba as "murderable" entities unless we invoke magic spooky reasons why not to.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.