Luke:
>
> No, they haven't. Killing fetuses isn't OK because they're
> "invaders" or "parasites." Both analogies are flawed and
> unnecessarily inflammatory. Rather, fetuses aren't persons
> and have no interests, so it's hard to see how aborting them
> raises any particularly troubling moral issues.
>
Looks like a sensible proposition. Death is a basic fact of life - one entity is killed so another entity can live or live in a particular style. Killing a fetus to make the woman's life easier is no more or less justified than, say, killing a bunch of Iraqis to allow a bunch American driving their SUV's cheaply, or killing a bunch of Serbs to ease the Europen angst about their own not so distant past o or for that matter, shooting a bunch of deer to make a bunch rednecks feel good about themselves. Ditto for death penalty, or any technology that endangers the life of some to make the life easier for others.
In short, death is an unavoidable consequence of life - it is a-moral, neither bad nor good. It acquires moral qualities only if it becomes integrated into a political claim or discourse - and it is integrated into such discourses and claims because of its strong persuasive power rooted in its finality. Saying "she is bad because she has no consideration for others" does not cary nearly the same weight as saying "she is bad because she caused the death of a living being." hence the "death of the innocents" is a a hackneyed argument to discredit political positions - not that much different form other invectives, a "communist," a "liberal," a "nazi" or a "racist."
Wojtek