Michele,the court in the Peterson case did no more than what courts historically have done all the way back to English Common Law cases,and that is to recognize the status of 'a life in being'. Vero

One need not take the route of 'moral relativism' to support abortion in various cases. The issue of whether a fetus is a human being or not is moot -- in that there can be "degrees" of humanity, not simply that something is human, or it is not.

From that perspective, one can, without a doubt, suppose that whatever a fetus is, if allowed to develop it will become a human being.

This does not mean that there cannot be legitimate reasons for killing the fetus, just as there are sometimes legitimate reasons for killing a human being.

We have killed many insurgents in Iraq, for instance, in the name of social progress. And as a result, Iraq is now becoming a free society.

In the deaths of fetuses/unborn children to abortion, one could argue (convincingly or unconvincingly, depending upon your worldview) that it has serviced the same moral progress.

The fact that one involves the killing of evil men, and the other involves the killing of the unborn, is rather incidental to the basic issues at play.