[lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 12 22:30:53 PST 2008


Michael,

Andie identified the person who wrote the original essay outlining the argument, MIT's Judith Jarvis Thompson.

In it, the essayist deals with what you say -- that it does indeed grant the "personhood" of the dependent being you are suddenly woken up & attached to. In fact, Judith at the outset says, (paraphrasing) -- okay, fine, let's *concede* the personhood of the dependent being in the thought-experiment; we'll take a different a tack, then, and still show why pro-lifers arguments are still ethically wrong.

The attitude of your argument seems to be the very Catholic one of, "You had sex, so now, ha, pay the consequences."

-B.

Michael Smith wrote:

"It grants the opposition's core premise -- the personhood of the fetus. My personal shorthand for this is 'yes-buttery': the liberal's characteristic response to any reactionary argument always opens with the phrase 'Yes, but...'"



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