Egan you have explained some things that I was struggling to formulate very well. Yes, I think that sums up what I was saying earlier, that I too believe abortion is morally wrong, but that it needs to be legal and people need to make their own decisions. We can maybe try to push one way or another as a society, but that's all. You wouldn't believe it from the posts here, but there do seem to be other religions in America and elsewhere, and some people who follow none, and they have rights too. Thank the stars I was not born into a theocracy.

You've also actually given an explanation as to why I eat meat. I was a veggie for a few years, a very sincere one, but I gave it up because I felt tired and fuzzy-headed all the time, and had to re-think things. I now believe my health and that of my family depends on eating meat, raised and slaughtered as humanely as possible. It is a fact that life depends on life. It can be distasteful and chilling, but it's also how things work. I rather like the idea of saying prayers to the spirits of the buffalo before killing one, as the native Americans did. We are disconnected from the source of our nourishment, and disconnected from nature. I've been reading dinosaur books to my daughter, and one of them shows predators stealing eggs to eat, and also catching a young dinosaur to eat. I feel an inward flinch when I read this to her, but it is a fact of life. In a way it's not all that different from our chicken we eat for lunch.