I just posted a comment on a Salon.com article by Mary Elizabeth “Kill ’Em All, Let God Sort ’Em Out” Williams. My comment should appear here, but my own testing of the link has not yielded positive results. If your results are equally bad, feel free to simply read my comment below.

“Yet,” Williams writes, “a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.” This rather badly misses the concept of natural and inalienable rights that undergirds this nation’s founding documents, and thus its laws. See a couple of my own recent explorations of these issues here and here. See also this detailed Libertarians For Life treatment from 1995/1999. (Whether or not the Libertarians For Life writer has a good metaphysical basis for her belief in natural rights, her unpacking of the implications of natural rights thinking to this issue seems sound.)