[outlawcam]

You know, at the Saddleback conference, when McCain was asked when life begins, he said unequivocally -- at conception.

One would wonder, then, why he would then make exceptions for rape and incest.

I have no desire to abandon common ground with anyone who thinks that, but it does represent my profound disappointment with McCain as a leader or as an intellectual. He is wholly incapable of consistency on this issue, because he does not understand it. If he does not understand it, he cannot defend it properly, and he unwittingly gives credence to the idea that abortion is just a matter of personal choice.

[MHGinTN]

Because of the principle of self-defense, the exceptions for rape and incest must remain legal ... pregnancy does increase mortality thus a female who is raped or parents who discover pregnancy due to incest must be able to protect. BUT, if the pregnancy termination does not happen early, immediately, then the self-defense should not be an automatic death sentence for an innocent other. And again, exceptions should not argue the rule.

[MHGinTN]

"McCain as a leader ... is wholly incapable of consistency on this issue, because he does not understand it." Perhaps John McCain understands not only the issue of when an individual life begins (as he said, at conception), but also has a grasp on the complexity of conflicting rights which many refuse to apprehend. When our technology reaches the point that a newly conceived human can be carefully removed from a womb and placed in another surrogate womb, THEN the issue of right to live will be paramount.

Because of the right to not be forced into surrogacy which increases mortality risk, coupled with the inability to immediately transplant a living being from a womb without killing the newly conceived, we are at a point which requires the principle of self-defense to play a role in the issue.

After decades in the Congress, John McCain has probably had occasion to think on these things and to think upon the actual difficulties in changing the perspectives and the policies.