Abortion is back in the news

So the abortion issue has been coming up a lot lately in the news cycle, what with the Gosnell verdict, Wendy Davis' filibuster in Texas, and the pro-life demonstrations in DC this week. I just have a couple of things to say, actually more than a couple:

-regardless of your position on choice, should a particular religious doctrine play a role in public policy in a constitutional republic? I would argue no, but you might argue that it's not a religious question but a moral one, but is it any more moral to condemn hundreds of thousands of unwanted babies to a lifetime of poverty, abuse, and dependency?

-on the other hand, the pro choice crowd bleat constantly about a woman's right to do what she wants with her body, as validation of the supposed right to abort at any point during gestation. I totally agree with that statement in theory. If a woman wants to exchange sex for money, it's her body. If a woman wants to enlist the help of a doctor to end her life on her own terms from a terminal disease, I support that too. But at what point does her baby's body belong to it rather than her? Birth? Certainly. Conception? Probably not. So when does that baby have individual rights that supersede the rights of the mother? That's the big question.

Does that point occur as a floating point in gestation after which the baby can survive on its own outside? Medical science moves that gestational date up closer and closer to conception every year. What happens in 50 years or so when they can fertilize and incubate a human baby entirely outside a maternal carrier? Then what?

There's also the economic consideration in a society with limited resources. Should the moral argument always outweigh the economic one? Is it moral or amoral to burden society with the upkeep of hundreds of thousands of unwanted children, perhaps for their entire lives, so we can feel moral as a society? I don't know the answer to that.

And finally, is human life so precious that it must be preserved no matter the cost?

Where I am right now, is that if a knocked-up brood mare cannot figure out that she doesn't want her baby within the first trimester (12 weeks) then she forfeits the right to abort it. I mean how stupid do you have to be to not be able to make that decision in 3 months time? Too stupid to be breeding, that's for sure.