1. Philosophically I'm pro-choice. I also see the practical aspect of providing legal services in order to pre-empt a much more dangerous black market system. I don't judge people who've made the choice. Except for my aunt, who had two abortions but remains a rabid and very vocal social conservative. And even then, I don't begrudge her her choices, I just resent her hypocrisy. However. I couldn't imagine having a hand in making that choice in regards to my own family. Just couldn't do it. 2. Not keen on capital punishment, for the following reasons: A) the whole "more expensive to society than life in prison" thing. B) Not clear if it actually works as a deterrent. C) I don't believe in the notion of justice as an eye for an eye. I believe in justice as a restoration of balance. There's a difference. Not many things worse than taking a life. But killing a murderer doesn't restore the life lost, it just adds a tally mark to the side of the dead. In a just system, the response to loss of life would be, what, an addition of something of equal or greater value to the world. That's pretty philosophically nebulous, but there you go. Here's an example of what I mean: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/i-would-like-you-to-know-my-nam/Content?oid=9434642 And then: http://proxy.bellstrike.com/about I heard an interview w/ Hopper a few months ago on our local NPR affiliate. She displayed not only strength and bravery on a level I know I wouldn't be capable of, but also an overwhelming amount of empathy for other victims, her partner, her assailant's family, and even her assailant. She took something unspeakably horrible, and she leveraged it into a social movement for healing. She's sort of a superhero in my book. Anyhow. I'm not convinced that capital punishment can provide that level of justice, or any level of justice. There are exceptions- only one I can think of right now is in the case of I dunno a serial killer- in which case maybe cap punishment is as much a service to the killer as it is to the survivors of his deeds. Still not even sure about that, though. Man, you're going straight to the heavy stuff tonight. What ever happened to pubski. Think it's implied in your post, TNG, but where do you stand on these matters more specifically?