But who gives you the authority to decide who deserves legal protection? Why do you get to impose your religion on the world? Do blacks deserve "any legal protections?" If some people think they don't how are we supposed to justify that they do? Some people I know don't think conservatives do. etc. etc. Why does the government get to decide who has rights?
Nick, I said I was done on this. It is a subjective judgment. We all get to make them, and then advocate them in the public square. Ain't democracy grand? You, and my good friend Walsh, and a bunch of others think killing a zygote is murder, and draw the line at the fertilized egg. I draw the line at sentience. You might not like that, or disagree with where I draw the line, but heck, you probably don't agree with my views on gay marriage or progressive taxation, and some other stuff either. That doesn't make either of us right or wrong per se in an objective sense (unless one asserts that gay marriage has led to more out of wedlock births based on the statistical evidence available to date with a 95% confidence level, which would indeed be wrong). I know the concept might be subtle, but maybe someone here will grasp it.