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Fundamentally, my position is that it is reasonable for the state to assert an interest in the rights of the nearly-fully-developed unborn child, and on this basis prohibit late-term abortions. But while I feel that RU486 and other abortions early in pregnancy are morally wrong and horrible and "sinful" and selfish and more, I cannot agree that the USA should make these horrible immoral sinful selfish acts unlawful.

Perhaps naive was too gentle ... you appear willing to defend the holocaust of the innocent unborn, as if it is either or, either women die from pregnancies or they are given carte blanc to hire the alive unborn killed for any reason.

Please do not put words in my mouth!

I never said either or -- I've said that the state needs to strike a balance between the rights of the woman (who risks her health and life) and the rights of the developing child -- as the unborn child develops towards physical independence from the organs of the mother, the state must give his rights greater weight. As set down in law, this may very well mean carte blanc early in pregnancy, and strict ban on any intentional harm to the unborn child later in pregnancy. This isn't what you want to hear, these are not the "total ban on anything abortion-like" laws the hardcore "pro life" lobby wants to see passed, however more than a "a significant noise in society" supports such an approach to this difficult topic.

Over and over again I read responses to my posts over the past few days which appear to take the position that anybody who does not agree with the position that America must have a total ban on abortion from the moment of conception forward must be an evil monster who endorses euthanasia, eugenics, and mercy killing -- painting all who disagree as the devil, sometimes literally.

To bring this back on topic, back to the question of self-defense, Brian Elroy McKinley has an interesting essay on this:

not only is pregnancy the prospect of having a potential person physically dependent on the body of one particular women, it also includes the women putting herself into a life-threatening situation for that potential person. Unlike social dependence, where the mother can choose to put her child up for adoption or make it a ward of the state or hire someone else to take care of it, during pregnancy the fetus is absolutely physically dependent on the body of one woman. Unlike social dependence, where a woman's physical life is not threatened by the existence of another person, during pregnancy, a woman places herself in the path of bodily harm for the benefit of a DNA life form that is only a potential person - even exposing herself to the threat of death. This brings us to the next question: do the rights of a potential person supersede the rights of the mother to control her body and protect herself from potential life-threatening danger?
5. Does it have human rights?
Yes and No.
A potential person must always be given full human rights unless its existence interferes with the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness of an already existing conscious human being. Thus, a gestating fetus has no rights before birth and full rights after birth.
If a fetus comes to term and is born, it is because the mother chooses to forgo her own rights and her own bodily security in order to allow that future person to gestate inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbearing, then she has the full right to terminate the pregnancy.
Anti-abortion activists are fond of saying "The only difference between a fetus and a baby is a trip down the birth canal." This flippant phrase may make for catchy rhetoric, but it doesn't belie the fact that indeed "location" makes all the difference in the world.
It's actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other - and thus they don't have equal rights. In the case of a pregnant woman, giving a "right to life" to the potential person in the womb automatically cancels out the mother's right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
After birth, on the other hand, the potential person no longer occupies the same body as the mother, and thus, giving it full human rights causes no interference with another's right to control her body. Therefore, even though a full-term human baby may still not be a person, after birth it enjoys the full support of the law in protecting its rights. After birth its independence begs that it be protected as if it were equal to a fully-conscious human being. But before birth its lack of personhood and its threat to the women in which it resides makes abortion a completely logical and moral choice.
Which brings us to our last question, which is the real crux of the issue....
6. Is abortion murder?
No. Absolutely not.
It's not murder if it's not an independent person. One might argue, then, that it's not murder to end the life of any child before she reaches consciousness, but we don't know how long after birth personhood arrives for each new child, so it's completely logical to use their independence as the dividing line for when full rights are given to a new human being.
Using independence also solves the problem of dealing with premature babies. Although a preemie is obviously still only a potential person, by virtue of its independence from the mother, we give it the full rights of a conscious person. This saves us from setting some other arbitrary date of when we consider a new human being a full person. Older cultures used to set it at two years of age, or even older. Modern religious cultures want to set it at conception, which is simply wishful thinking on their part. As we've clearly demonstrated, a single-cell zygote is no more a person that a human hair follicle.
But that doesn't stop religious fanatics from dumping their judgments and their anger on top of women who choose to exercise the right to control their bodies. It's the ultimate irony that people who claim to represent a loving God resort to scare tactics and fear to support their mistaken beliefs.
It's even worse when you consider that most women who have an abortion have just made the most difficult decision of their life. No one thinks abortion is a wonderful thing. No one tries to get pregnant just so they can terminate it. Even though it's not murder, it still eliminates a potential person, a potential daughter, a potential son. It's hard enough as it is. Women certainly don't need others telling them it's a murder.
It's not. On the contrary, abortion is an absolutely moral choice for any woman wishing to control her body.