Nice try...

I was being serious...so present a right good argument for why you ought to be able to eat lettuce.

OD

Because lettuce, or any other vegetable matter, is not a "living being" in so far as a human being is. There is absolutely, and without question, a quantifiable and marked difference between the two.

And there is also a stark and marked contrast between human life and animal life.

Comparing eating lettuce to abortion is something out of the insane playbook of NARAL.

Jefferson, I was not meaning to compare eating lettuce to abortion so much as to say that which Tadpole said. About beliefs and truth. Rights and morality.

Whose beliefs make for legislation? Whose moral standards? How do we determine that?

OD

Are you thinking that laws are NOT based on morals? If not, then what ARE they based on?

Jefferson, are they not made on the basis of rights? And yes there is a moral tone inferred. But I ask you, when one's rights and another's morality are in conflict, what is the law to do?

OD

What leads us to believe in civil, or individual, rights? MORALS

ALL laws are based on morals. And laws are enacted - in the United States, anyway - based on majority vote. Therefore, not all laws are morally right, because a majority of people can be morally bereft.

But I digress... EVERY law is based on a moral.

Not really. It means that if the decision were mine, I would choose life (certainly not on any religious grounds), but if the decision is not mine, I have enough respect and care for others to respect their right to choose. It's logical.

Yes to Tadpole. I do not for one minute believe that laws can be based on faith-rendered morality.

It is essential that Governing principles are based on reason.

OD

Why is it that a pre-human can get such special rights but someone who is already born is fucked? It seems to me that most pro-lifers are also pro-death penalty, and also against any sort of social healthcare, or welfare or anything that helps REAL people. Until a baby is born, it is my contention that it is a parasite. Which sounds cold, and maybe even deragatory, but it is neither. It is simply a statement of the fact that the baby can not live on it's own, and is subject to the will of the mother. The mother has the right to do with her body as she chooses, and if she chooses to not share it with another creature, I see it as no more damning than being de-wormed.