<< On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 15:44:22 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> It is only sexism that makes abortion, but not other medical services (like
vasectomy, root canals, etc.), look like an _especially weighty_ moral
decision, unlike any other.
Misogyny I'd say. >>
Well, I haven't been participating in this and won't here, beyond referring people back to my earlier discussions of abortion, but I believe, and have argued in detail on this list, that abortion is a conceptually and morally extraordinarily difficult issue. I agree that most of the antiabortion crowd, like most of anybody on any issue, is not motivated by a solid grasp on the tough arguments against abortion, but that pertains to analysis of the politics of the abortion debate, and not to the merits of the issues. The antiabortionists might have arrived at a morally defensible position for bad motives or bad reasons. I don't think they have, but the arguments are complex and hard, and I am not particularly satisfied with the reasoning that I know of on any side. I am using the word "moral" here to refer to whatever it is we have an overriding reason to do, whatever that reason is. But you all can pat yourselves on your back about how enlightened you are compared tor all of those benighted moralists.
--jks