Where the fetus/infant distinction becomes absurd.

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From today's Best of the Web at that Wall Street Journal website:

Here's a truly bizarre story from the Associated Press:

Skeletal remains discovered by hunters last week in Audubon County in western Iowa are those of an infant or fetus, Audubon County sheriff's officials said.

The sheriff says "further tests" are necessary to determine if it's an infant or a fetus. Is he serious? Everyone knows an infant is a human being, while a fetus is just a clump of cells. How could anyone have trouble telling the difference?

This is priceless. Think about it: if the baby was aborted at 38 weeks, was it a fetus or an infant? What if the baby was stillborn at 39 weeks? What if the baby was aborted at 41 weeks (it was past its due date) but still had not been born?

I certainly have no idea how an examination of the bones of the fetus/infant will give the examiner any relevant information on whether the dead "thing" was a fetus or an infant. After all, it seems as if the bones could tell the medical examiner how many weeks had passed since the date of conception based upon the development of the skeleton, but the bones certainly could not tell him whether the baby would be classified as an infant or a fetus because that determination depends upon whether it was wanted or not, right?

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