The fact is, one encounters to extremes of fanatics and nothing in the middle. Whereas, aborting seems to me to be an issue where the answer is very murky. On the one hand the fetus is an organ of the mother's body, on the other a human being with rights independent of the mother. Yet it is rare to meet one person who will admit both these obvious facts.
Personally, as a libertarian, I believe that abortion should be legal (i.e., I do not believe there are compelling enough arguments for it to be outlawed and that any law requires very compelling areguments) but I also believe if used simply to end an unwanted pregnancy that it is an amoral practice. It may be used in a moral manner with out qualification in only two cases that I see: where the pregnancy endangers the mother's life or where it appears the nascent child's quality of life will suffer do to birth defects than cannot be treated (at exactly what point we may considered quality of life infringed upon I don't think it will be possible to give an general answer and the decision made will of its nature always be controversial). I am not sure why incest is generally permitted as an acceptable situation to have an abortion (assuming the fetus if free from birth defects), it is true there is a social stigma, but whether the stigma is that terrible to suffer compared to many others one can think of that are never mentioned in this connection is not apparent. Even in the case of rape, the rights of the fetus ought to be considered as well as of the mother. As I mentioned, I think it should be legal and I think in practice the decision the mother herself makes on the matter will be the best one. But I think if a sane conclusion is to come of this issue liberals need to drop the hypocritical stance of pretending that there are not valid arguments against abortion accompanied by the use of euphemisms such as "pro choice" that efface the fact we are arguing for the destruction of a human life.
> Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:56:57 -0500
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> From: shag at cleandraws.com
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans
>
> At 12:41 PM 12/11/2008, Jenny Brown wrote:
> >
> >The main problem is that if you blame 'religion' for public views without
> >taking a deeper look, where does that take you in the practical
> >realm? Attack the public's religiosity?
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