If an Iraqi mother and her unborn child

Mr. Righteous!

Again, MUCH of the violence perpetrated on these people is done by terrorists. Did you know the Iraqi 'insurgents' like to fill a car with children and bombs, then detonate it at checkpoints next to our soldiers, while they run and hide?

So yeah, I'd call that heartless murder.

Our current wars cause less collateral damage than past wars. We try to avoid killing the innocent. But these kind, loving terrorists hide behind women and children because they really don't care about their lives. They are known to bomb Iraqis themselves and blame it on Americans so they can show it on Al Jazeera and further incite violence.

(And this is in addition to being murdered just for being gay in many Arab nations... being killed or maimed if you are a woman who has been raped, etc... Talk about human rights violations, we've got NOTHING on the Islamic world!)

My point is still consistency of principle. Consistency here is that the child is murdered, no matter which side does it. If it's not murder then logically killing a child in a womb is not always murder. It's situational. You have to choose, Squiddy. Consistent principle or situational ethics.

Sure, you can call both murder. But it still does not excuse the wanton taking of a child's life while still in the womb. From what I understand, 'collateral' damage, or innocent people who die in war, are not killed in a premeditated way. They are ACCIDENTS, they are not the target. Abortion is not an accident.

I think you've been steeped in the religion of moral equivalency, from which you try to equate things that really are not the same.

It's about probabilities. In some cases the military knows there is a 100% chance of killing civilians. Their deaths are not an accident. We just don't know which specific people will die, so it's an accident that a specific person died.

It's also about knowledge. Because we don't know what specific persons will die we feel we can claim "accident." But we're basically talking about a lack of knowledge, not a lack of intent to kill a specific person.

And I'm not excusing the wanton taking of a child's life in the womb. I'm talking about consistency and taking responsibility for your actions. If abortion is murder then the death of children in a womb in war time is also murder. Let's be honest and call it what it is. Let's not use words to obscure the truth and excuse ourselves.

About moral equivalency. I think it's a mistake to claim that "my sin is not as bad as your sin."
So, this makes me better than you.