Whatever do you mean? I can give you, chapter and verse, the ACLU (liberal, bourgeois) *argument* in favor of a woman's right to choose abortion. I can give similar *arguments* in favor of most civil and human rights. If there is a Marxist argument (is there?), would you please state it? Claiming that it was settled a long time ago does not answer the question, it merely attempts to silence the questioner.
I am not saying that leftists should give ground to the right in the sense of allowing the *political* argument to be re-opened, but why cannot the issue be discussed amongst leftists from a *philosophical* perspective. Jesus, people on this list will ponder the most abstruse aspects of this or that implication of that or the other text of Marx's, but somebody asks a fairly obvious question (which may or may not have an obvious answer) and people don't even want to talk about it. Strange indeed.
> Wouldn't you feel incensed if someone (esp. on a 'left' list in the late
> 90s!) were to ask for a 'justification' of homosexuality or a 'reason' to
> defend political actions against homophobia?
Yes I would, but then I would object to veiled accusations of homophobia on a left list and, in fact, the last time I called someone on it, they shut right up.
> Demands for 'justification' for abortion are measures of our inferior
> status as women.
That is not what is going on here. If you can't see that, you don't want to.
>
> Yoshie
>
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com