Jesus, for like the 100th time, nobody (even Wrangor) is arguing against it in the case of health concerns for the mother. But 95% of abortions don't involve health concerns for the mother (or rape, or incest, or the other insignificant excuses). Stop arguing against it.
What on earth are you talking about? Does anyone even read the preceding posts before responding? Or do you rely on your preconceived notions of morality and Fox-news inspired talking points to respond without thinking first?
I am
not talking about exceptions in the case of health concerns for the mother. I AM TALKING ABOUT WOMEN'S RIGHTS. Like a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body. Reproductive rights, in general. Or that a woman should be paid the same as a man for the same job. Or violence against women. Institutional oppression. Things like that.
I've said it before, but I agree with Wrangor that to call it anything other than murder is just conscious blinders by whoever is trying to justify it to themselves; however I also don't think it wrong to give that murderous decision to the mother, but just call it what it is. And if we are to treat that as legal, then other types of murder-for-convenience should be legal as well (physician-assisted suicide; third-party euthanasia; life-without-parole death squads, etc.)
So we agree, more or less. Great.
Wrangor is still caught up in the fact that someone (a lot of people, actually) can be anti-abortion for reasons other than MURDER or vote pro-choice for reasons other than the life of a fetus.
By this logic, should contraception not be considered immoral/illegal too? It's preventing the "potential to become life." Or Plan B?
I'd be interested in answers from both the ideologically pure (Wrangor) and the philosophically curious (wakephan09 and others).
David Lodge, in 1980, on the question:
"Any intelligent, educated Catholic of that generation [early 60s, pre-Pope Paul VI] who had remained a practising Catholic through adolescence and early adulthood had made a kind of existential contract: in return for the reassurance and stability afforded by the Catholic metaphysical system, one accepted the moral imperatives that went with it, even if they were in practice sometimes inhumanely difficult and demanding. It was precisely the strength of the system that it was total, comprehensive and uncompromising, and it seemed to those brought up in the system that to question one part of it was to question all of it, and that to pick and choose among its moral imperatives, flouting those which were inconveniently difficult, was simply hypocritical."
Based on their responses, it seems that most of those people on this thread think that life begins at contraception, and it was only me that proposed the "potential for life" supposition. I suggested it as a hypothetical (in the third person) primarily to posit the flaws in Wrangor's logic (because he really does seem genuinely interested in justifying his personal religious beliefs logically -- e.g. on war). I don't like abortion for a variety of personal reasons, but none of which are because I think it is murder. But none of those reasons are more important, in my opinion, than giving women the right to decide what to do with their own bodies (and again, for 2&2, this is
NOT a reference to health concerns for the mother).