"womanhood" and abortion

d-m-c at worldnet.att.net d-m-c at worldnet.att.net
Tue Nov 24 04:12:29 PST 1998


Enzo asked:
>But why shouldn't this argument apply to, say, slaves
in a society
>recognizing slavery? Slaves are not members of
society and thus have no
>rights. Or women in a patriarchal society, for that
matter: a productive
>man's rights trump those of a humble housewife, yes?

It could and it has. But Enzo, these examples existed in a society that upheld a liberal conception of rights as existing prior to society so this is no grounds upon which to reject the rights-as-product-of-society model. (Indeed, your earlier claims about tradition are, in fact, suggestive of thismodel as well) Upholding a liberal conception of rights in this matter is obviously no guarantee against this problem.

Let me remind you of what I typed at the beginning of that post: "In China girl babies were aborted or murdered with the institution of the one child policy. Is the answer to outlaw abortion? No, the answer is to create a society in which girl children are not seen as inferior."

I would prefer a world in which we recognize that rights are NOT universal, that we are NOT born with them and so we must vigilantly struggle for them. Rights are created by people through political struggle. They are socially constructed as it were. This means, of course, that we must admit that rights aren't universal. Rather, they are relatively enduring social constructions that rest on insitutions, practices, and traditions. However, since they are socially constructed, then they are also contestable, though not in any way we please.

Snit "If they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers" --Thomas Pynchon



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