Not Just Abortion Shenanigans, Matt

One of the things most of my liberal pals seem to miss is that the various actions by the Bush administration to give various legal recognition to embryos and fetuses aren't just symbolic gestures to placate the anti-choicers. I haven't had enough coffee yet to inspire me to hunt down the details, and perhaps my lawyer friends can help me out, but from what I remember one of the reasons the Court has thus far declined to revisit the central ruling in Roe v. Wade is that there hasn't as of yet been the establishment of any legal status of the fetus - that is no establishment of their standing in law. So, the motivation for doing these types of things is to give legal recognition to the fetus.