[thecavemaster]

Now, just so I understand: the expressed idea that "innocence" (used as a moral term) might need the capacity for guilt to be meaningful and that the abortion debate might be better argued along different grounds... that means I've never learned to value children? Quite a chasm to jump across, seems to me.

By the way, I don't necessarily find children, my own or anyone else's, to be "pure and innocent." Sweet a lot of the time (check). Dependent and needy (which in little things like kittens means "loveable") (check). Cute (little things are) (check). But, innocent and pure? I don't see it, nor do I think the Judaeo/Christian tradition taught it ("steeped in sin at birth"). Oh dear, perhaps "god" doesn't value children either.