[lbo-talk] abortion poll

[joanna]

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>If Joanna is talking about the case of women who are mentally ill,
>rather than religious, well, that's a matter of disability rights.
>Mentally and physically disabled women have often been denied sexual
>rights and freedoms as well as reproductive rights and freedoms.  What
>do leftists think about that discrimination against the disabled?
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The issue that I'm raising is that sometime after conception and before 
full term, a foetus is viable outside the mother's body. Given that this 
is the case, does a woman have the right to end a life that could 
continue outside her body? Or is that possibly a space in which society 
has a voice.

I'm not arguing for a particular resolution to this issue; I'm just 
saying that at the point where a foetus is viable without the mother, we 
enter an area where it's not a hangnail or a polyp.

I am also not arguing that God wants eight month old foetuses to be 
aborted -- though the Sacrifice of Isaac comes close to that -- I'm just 
saying that at the point where the foetus is viable, can a woman for any 
reason whatsoever, choose to have it killed.

I understand that this covers a very, very small percentage of cases, 
but I was irritated by the blanket statement (not coincidentally made by 
males) that a foetus can be killed whenever and for the hell of it.

I can follow the logic of an idea as well as anyone. But a foetus is not 
an idea.

Joanna