lifesavers vs. fetal symbols

Steve Perry sperry at usinternet.com
Mon Aug 23 18:47:13 PDT 1999


I'm not interested in whether my argument is politically compelling so much as I'm interested in whether it's morally and medically coherent. As to the slippery question of "personhood," I find that pretty uncompelling on moral grounds as well. It's just another dodge, and a pretty cowardly one at that. (If the pregnancy is left uninterrupted, what will the fetus become, apart from those spontaneously aborted? A person.) Presumably you mean by the term some state of independent consciousness and independent living capacity; are you willing to decree the killing of those whose "personhood" is complicated or compromised by retardation, brain injuries, extremes of physical deformity, and so forth?

Remembering, of course, that if we continue down the road of "personhood," yours will not the sole definition brought into play...

PS:

It's all well and good to say that abortion is principally a women's health issue--*if* you are content to restrict abortion rights to those cases in which a woman's health is demonstrably compromised by the prospect of carrying a pregnancy to term. But that is of course *not* what you are saying. Thus, another dodge. I repeat, I favor abortion rights; what I do not favor is moral dishonesty in the defense of any political position-- whether or not it makes that position harder to market.



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