On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> The problem for us pro-choice types is to explain why birth is the
> significant line. jks
>
I hesitate to jump into this with a person with far more philosophical acumen than myself, but try this out: people in our society make conscious decisions that result in the death of innocents all the time. If we say 99.9% of death penalty cases result in the death of people who are really guilty, and there are 1000 executions, we're advocating the death of an innocent person if we support the death penalty. These types of situations are commonplace in our society: support for lax environmental laws, draconian social aid for working poor pregnant women, 70 mph+ speed limits on the interstates. Many, many political and social decisions that people make clearly and directly lead to the death of innocent people in our society and throughout the world (coughiraqcough).
So we need to come clean: even the anti-abortion crowd doesn't think "life is sacred". Not really. They are willing to sacrifice innocent people if it makes their lives more efficient or pleasant. It isn't a question of living up to the impossible ethical principle of not taking innocent life; rather, it is a question of deciding under what conditions taking innocent life is justifiable. So agonizing about when a fetus becomes a person is irrelevant. Insofar as you believe that women should be autonomous individuals rather than reproductive vessels at all costs, abortion is justifiable, as are other social practices that lead to innocent death.
Miles