the power of the state, abortion, and ethics

Carrol Cox cbcox at mail.ilstu.edu
Mon Nov 16 16:37:06 PST 1998


Greg Nowell wrote:


> Now, is it ethical to abort or to have a death penalty?
>
> The ethical question is highly complex and not
> easily solved. For here we argue about what "ought to
> be" rather than what is. The debate is over what
> policy preferences to impose on the state to limit its
> powers.
>

Greg's analysis of the debate moves it forward substantially, but with this last paragraph he slips backwards. It is a political question, and what is wrong with Singer or Rob or other anti-communist moralists is not that they support this moral decision rather than that, but that they are moralists.

We do or we do not, as a political position, support the right of individual women to choose to abort a fetus. I take it as given that we support that right. ("We" here includes all persons who I am willing to allow the label "progressive.")

Under present conditions (and while theoretically there might be conditions which changed the case, I cannot imagine those conditions), the greatest threat to this right of abortion is the immense social pressure brought to bear on women to consider abortion a moral choice rather than one of personal preference.

Moralism is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, obstacles to social decency.

Carrol



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