Secret Squirrel wrote:
People always want simplified issues. People don't
like to think. Wait . . . Worse than murder?

Absolutely, I've heard that remark with my own ears, when
listening to people comment on a molestation case on TV or
in the papers (and not necessarily a horrific, or violent
one to boot). "The child would have been better off if they
had been murdered", or something to that effect. Not once,
but more than a few times.

More than a little goth with that one, init?

This could be simply a brain fart on their part, but I think
that--going back to my point about AOC laws and the notion
of childhood 'sexual innocence' in our society being largely
the result of Christianity (which would make AOC laws
unconstitutional, btw)--that if you really think that a boy is
better off dead than getting a blowjob, what does that really
say about the assumptions being made? I think that said
underlying assumption is that the murdered child would
still 'exist', in heaven, with Jesus. This underscores to
what extend this is a religious taboo of sorts being maintained
by the state. It also makes since that despite the hypocrisy
you've pointed out, the Religious Right plays the anti-pedo
card more frequently than anyone.

Too true. Of course, the anti-pedo card is rarely played
against actual pedophiles. More often than not, it's
played against homosexuals who prefer a partner roughly
the same age as themselves.

Of course, hysteria has to be maintained, IMHO, to keep
the current system in place, as any rational discussion
causes a 'WTF is going on?' reaction. That's why studies
like the Rind et. al one draw such immediate flak from the
Dr. Lauras. The hysteria is necessary to squelch opposition
and to *prevent* any rational examination of the emperor's
new clothes.

Or even studies which show that the pedophile isn't the
stereotype. I mean, Lewis Carroll was into little girls, but
a world where male virginity is more closely guarded than
female virginity is definitely through the looking-glass.

I guess I have less of a problem with abortion, as I really
do believe that the medical evidence says that a fetus, at
least early on, doesn't have brain activity and hence no
consciousness. And that's as good a definition of 'human
life' as we have, drawing a correspondence with those brain
dead but kept alive-by-machines not really being 'alive',
either.

The brain starts developing by the third week. It's most
rapid in the seventh month, though.

At least abortion actually IS a legitimate bioethical
issue, unlike (say) contraception or euthanasia.

But hell, if you get a woman pregnant, you probably
planned to anyway.