[Romulus]

born out of wedlock, into conditions and a culture

So what?

This is a civil rights thread -- specifically, the right to life. It isn't a sociology thread.

[r9etb]

This is a civil rights thread -- specifically, the right to life. It isn't a sociology thread.

Well, golly. I did preface my comment with "As an aside."

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I find it's often helpful to try to gain a bigger-picture view of problems, as a means of understanding things like abortion.

For example, it not like there's no "sociological" (i.e., cultural) aspect to the high abortion rate among black women ... what I wonder is, are the two -- abortions and illegitimacy -- culturally connected in some way?

Just to ask the question is enough to suggest that there's a common thread between the two phenomena.

But perhaps your view from the high heights of your saddle prevented you from seeing the possible tie-in.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, like any thread, it's a conversation and therefore it's what you make of it.

I personally think the out-of-wedlock question is relevant and important, as probably Ms. King would agree, because what we're seeing is a dramatic devaluation of the sacredness of life and of the sources of life. If we devalue life, we permit the killing of babies. If we devalue the sources of life, we cheapen and trivialize sex and take it out of the honorable setting of marriage.

This also devalues the babies who are born under such insecure and deprived conditions, born to parents who didn't even value the baby, or each other, enough to get married.