Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>[clip]
> ***** The New York Times
> May 24, 2001, Thursday, Late Edition - Final
>
> Greg Hembree, the prosecutor whose office handled the McKnight case,
> said he wanted to show the public -- and "particularly those women
> who were addicted who may get pregnant" -- that "there's some
> consequences for your actions."
>
Aside from the primary point which Yoshie makes (that this is just one element in the wholesale attack on women), this fits some of my own recent concerns.
Hembree "just wanted to show" those women. Posters on LBO periodically break into a frenzy "just want[ing] to show] some arbitrary collection of individuals that they are bad people. No political change will be brought about by the chorus of abuse heaped on SUV owners. Similarly, no political change will be brought about by heaping abuse on the 95+X% of the population who will never read enough books. "Pregnant women" is (depending on the context) a significant category (e.g., from the perspective of control of lead in the atmosphere) and from others as arbitrary a classification as that of SUV drivers. Here it is of the latter sort. It is a classification created arbitrarily to fulfill (illegitimate) political goals of the South Carolina ruling elites.
Moralism in a good cause is just as despicable and politically retrograde as moralism in a false cause.
Carrol